Play It Fucking Loud
JUDAS!
The cry cuts through the murmur of the crowd. Rising above the hushed conversations with a snarl of pretentious accusation: A thin figure strides center stage, Stratocaster slung at his waist. He flashes the faintest grin before his voice cracks softly through the speakers
"I don't believe you."
He turns to his band. Eyes rolling and head shaking.
"Play it fucking LOUD"
And they sure did…
To the dismay of an audience expecting the pretty pluckings of Blowin' in the Wind on a Gibson
J-200, they instead got one of the loudest, grittiest performances of Like a Rolling Stone the world had ever heard. A proper "ear fucking" if you will.
Dylan, the folk prophet of a generation, had made himself an enemy of the people he was still fighting for a year prior when he plugged in at Newport, but this was the moment he became a revolutionary.
"I didn't turn my back on you. You just refused to keep up."
It's a moment I think about often.
I won't lie: I'm terrified. The storm of division we're living through feels like civil war is the only logical end. Or does the country by and large just accept it?
But still, I can't help but laugh at the sheer absurdity of it all.
My favorite song from the maestro is:
"Bob Dylan's 115th Dream"
Track 7 on Bringing It All Back Home
Last track on Side 1.
A few lines from that song have been sticking with me lately:
"I went to get some help / I walked by a Guernsey cow / Who directed me down to the Bowery slums / Where people carried signs around sayin'
'Ban the bums!'
"I rapped upon a house / With a U.S. flag upon display / I said, 'Could you help me out? / I got
some friends down the way.' / The man said, 'Get out of here! I'll tear ya limb from limb!' / I said,
'You know, they refused Jesus too?'/ He said, 'You're not Him.'
Sixty years have passed since Dylan wrote those words; yet so much of this country feels as backwards and broken as it did in Bobby's 115th Dream.
I turn 37 tomorrow. Sunday, January 19th.
Monday(the day you read this) we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day-
Ya know... the guy who had THE
dream...
And yet, that same day we'll hand the keys to the White House to a failed reality TV star.
A man so consumed by his own ego and hatred that he'd sooner sell this country out to the Tech Bro
Gestapo A-Go-Go before ever being held accountable for the slime he pissed all over the country and the heinous crimes he's committed.
But it's not just politics, is it?
The slime has oozed into every corner we once turned to for relief. It's in our news, our careers, our entertainment-and we're all just letting it happen.
So, I laugh. I have to. If I don't, there's no way I'll make it through the other side. If there's even an other side to make it to. Some days, I honestly don't know.
I'm an artist.. I know how to make shit
And I really love pro wrestling.
So while I personally can't fix the stupid the national government is pushing, I can push for the spaces and the conversations around an art form I love to be better. To progress. To be a place of community and safety.
