Some of us have more problems with heroes. Steve Earle comes to mind -- he often tells the story of playing a gig early in his career in Houston, and his hero Townes Van Zandt showed up and sat in front. He then proceeded to heckle Steve for the rest of the evening. "Play Wabash Cannonball. You call yourself a folk singer but you don't know Wabash Cannonball." It wasn't a zen moment; Townes, when drunk and off meds could be a real asshole. While touring in support of his TVZ album, Steve touchingly says that after years of thinking about it, the main reason more people don't know Townes Van Zandt was Townes Van Zandt.
Steve also tells the story of leaving a tour during his drug days, driven by the sudden need to hitchhike off at Thanskgiving time and see William S. Burroughs. Not that he knew the guy, but Burroughs was a hero of his too. So, with two guitars -- one wouldn't be enough -- a gun, a stash and a roll of money he took off. He showed up, and Burroughs was the sort of host an insane junky crashed in Lawrence Kansas would be expected to be.. Burroughs was not the sort of guy to feel comfortable with a left-leaning country singer in the early 90s...do ya think?
Steve had better luck with people like Guy Clark, Emmy Lou Harris and Johnny Cash. But, those stories are not so funny. I'd be curious to listen to a conversation about writing and meaning between Steve and Bob Dylan. That would be interesting.
I just saw a thing that Jabba Hut Lindbaugh has an annual Thanksgiving story about how socialism almost killed the early pilgrims. Not exactly. And, as usual, he's a total dipshit about it. It's true that the pilgrims had an agreement at first to have all thing in commons. However, they departed late with one ship instead of the two that were planned, and did not finally get to Plymouth until December. They looted some graves of corn left as offerings for the dead, but they were in coastal New England during what we know to have been a particularly cold cycle in the world's climate and they were short of supplies to begin with.
Pure socialism is as stupid a system as pure capitalism. However, it wasn't the communitarian living plans that almost killed these folks -- it was bad navigation, poor planning, insufficient supplies and insufficient knowledge of what to expect. The Pequot tribesman who actually helped them lived in a communal arrangement that worked really well until disease, warfare and Protestant Christianity did them all in.
Regardless of system, scarcity is the problem. If there is not enough and Jesus hasn't provided the receipe for multiplying wine, fish and bread, any system can be stressed to the near breaking point. Interestingly to me, the retreat from a communal to a more traditional structure occurred after a supply of food and goods was secured. Dylan summed this problem up very well --scarcity is the problem.
As I said, it would be interesting to listen to Dylan and Earle and Clark talk about songwriting. We know that Dylan and Cash spent a lot of time together, so I suspect that some of the others have also been at Cinnamon Hill or at Hendersonville for a guitar pull or two.
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