I will never forget my first
international love affair. He was
an oh-so-exotic trumpet player from the faraway land of Canada. Not only was he from a mysterious foreign
land, but he was also quite a bit older (and therefore significantly more
worldly) than myself. I
mean, I was 15, and he was not 15.
He wasn’t 15 and a half. He
wasn’t even 16. No, this was an
OLDER man of 17. And when we spent
the summer together at Interlochen, the International Music Camp, we did not
say adieu at the end of each night at the “shake gate.” No, I followed this international man
of intrigue to the “date gate” each night and actually smooched the night
farewell. I tell you all of this
so that you can understand just how amazingly cool and sophisticated this man
and our relationship were.
Although I was only a summer student, my
luvah continued on as a boarding school student. Of course, I visited the following fall. When I picked him up, so that he, my
best friend Patricia, and I could cruise off campus, he popped a tape into my
cassette deck. I, being a voice
student, said, “That is THE WORST singing I have ever heard!” He raised his eyebrows in horror and
replied, “That is Bob Dylan, the world’s greatest singer-songwriter. What are you talking about??! Are you even listening to the
lyrics??” Well, at that point in my adventure as a
singer, I really hadn’t paid enough attention to lyrics. I often mimicked the emotions of the
singers I was imitating, but I hadn’t gotten to the point where I was actually
interpreting lyrics and conveying the emotions they conjured. So, I listened.
“Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial
Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while
But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues
You can tell by the way she smiles
See the primitive wallflower freeze
When the jelly-faced women all sneeze
Hear the one with the mustache say, "Jeeze
I can't find my knees"
Oh, jewels and binoculars hang from the head of the mule
But these visions of Johanna, they make it all
seem so cruel.”
What the hell????
I was horrified to find that I wasn’t even cool
enough to realize how cool it was even after I slowed down to analyze the
details that were right in front of me.
That was the first moment it struck me: I was not awesome.
Yep.
And that blow has stayed with me now for the past
24 years.
Until yesterday….
I saw this article, assumed it was from the
Onion, and then realized it was not.
What? Really? Can it be? Has my self-perception been based on a lie? A falsification? Maybe, perhaps, possibly I’m awesome
after-all!
You really have to read the entire article,
but here’s the first paragraph, “Rock and roll legend, Bob Dylan,
acknowledged in a recent interview that he has perpetuated an elaborate hoax on
the public for more than fifty years. “I can’t sing, half of the time I don’t
even say real words, I just mumble, and my lyrics make no sense.”
This changed everything!
Maybe I AM awesome. Maybe it’s all been a huge misunderstanding brought about by
this 50-year hoax perpetuated by this clever conniver.
And if that’s so, it opens the door to so many more
possible misconceptions that may have led to misinterpretations and under
ratings of my coolness?
I bet crimped hair really WAS still cool in 1990. Maybe ALL the cool kids watched “Weird
Science” over and over until they had all of the dialogue written down in a
spiral notebook. That’s it; I’m
going back to saying, “Okey Dokey.”
I really AM awesome, and I clearly always have been!
But then, alas, I tempted fate, and I Googled “The
Global Edition”. Here’s the
article that threw it all back into the harsh light of reality:
“Theglobaledition.com is a satire/fake news site – this
means that all the stories published on it are there for the sole purpose of
your entertainment and are not factual nor true and you should read them as
such. The publisher accepts no responsibility for the accuracy of the
information provided in the content. It is a fragment of authors’ imagination
and any similarity with real events or persons are accidental.”
Damnit!!!
Oh well.
The world needs nerds too.
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