Talk about "sick to death," Ian. I've seen Bob Dylan live twice in the last ten years, and he's sorely lacking in the "living" category.
Anyway, wanna put my blog to music? Maybe I can write something great about Deval Patrick and we can make it his campaign theme song!
Oh my god, yes. Our first hit will be:
I actually remember seeing,
seeing this woman
once as I was walkin',
walkin' down Mass Ave.
In Central Square, she--
she drove past _me_...
On a Vespa
wearin' her Flava clock.
You know, I saw Dylan a year or so ago too, and it was pretty clear that he was just a low-functioning, animatronic shell painted to look like Bob Dylan.
And I think his strange public contributions support the robot concept even more, except there's competing forces running his image; first he says there's no good recent music, then he plays a radio show with a bunch of that music that he apparently doesn't like. Those robot guys are fucking with a great American icon and making him look like some uninformed douchebag.
and Ian, this post is great, ps.
I was so incredibly pissed when I read that Bob Dylan quote last week. No one has made an album that sounds good in the last 20 years? I don't care if he is Bob Dylan...who does this guy think he is?
Also, this is the best phrase ever:
"... aren't even worthy of the term "masturbatory" because no one gets off."
I'm most definitely going to steal it. Or at least pirate it off the internet.
I love it!!
http://www.slate.com/id/2148563
Also:
"Three" makes a trend, at least in journalism.
PS.
That was a damn good documentary.
BTW, are you actually calling Dylan prosaic? Are we thinking about the same person?
And if we're evaluating a musician's work on the basis of his age, rather than his talent, what the hell has your classical musical education been about?
BTW - apologies to the house for bitchiness.
No apologies necessary - but I think you might be misunderstanding my initial complaint with Dylan. My beef with Dylan is less musical and more personal, embodied by the comments I've quoted here. The PBS/Rolling Stone discrepancy was just too perfect not to make a joke of; I've since been advised that Dylan's XM radio show is actually very eclectic. I don't know if I'd call Dylan prosaic, but I certainly don't get excited by his music.
But don't misunderstand me on Neil Young. That new album of his has some just goddamn awful lyrics!
Woops -- forgot about the classical music piece, too. Don't want to skip that.
I'm not saying that older idioms of songwriting, like folk-circa-1960s/70s, don't have their place in performance or recording. I can't think of a good classical music analogy, but it would roughly be like Tchaikovsky coming back to life, complaining that no one had done a good "Romeo and Juliet" in a while, rewriting his symphonic suite, and pretending that Berlioz's "Romeo et Juliet" never existed.
Was that too geeky? I just lost everyone but Sabrina, I think. 
Dylan is really eccentric, and I'll grant you that his comment that there hasn't been a decent album in 20 years nutty. Especially since he also has crush on Alicia Keys. If I haven't totally exposed myself as a fan, I am now, and whether you like him or hate him, his lyrics are poetic. So were you talking about Dylan, or Young? I guess Young.
I went off on y'all because you were judging these guys on their age, rather than their musical ability.
Also, I know I'm the only one here, but the masturbation metaphor didn't make any sense to me.
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