A podcast produced by Yale University Press with myself and David Thomson, focusing on my book What Nails It, part of Yale’s Why I Write series, can be heard here.
"Rock-a-Hula Clarified" was in the first issue of Creem I ever saw, on a newsstand in Boulder. It starts with a variation on the classic joke: John Simon, Erich Segal, and Little Richard walk into a bar...or the Dick Cavett Show. It changed everything for me. Thanks for that, Greil.
Even Greil cops to the double-standard on Harris v. Trump, i.e., while Trump can go out and behave and say things that would get any other public person, let alone politician, drummed out of the public sphere, Harris has to be perfect for whatever reason. I mean, the choice is between a rational, intelligent, capable, experienced public servant and a goddamn lunatic and people want to nit-pick on a question she may have answered less than perfectly. Sheesh!
Re: Bob Dylan introducing his songs onstage, maybe he did that in Greenwich Village days or god help us, on the '78 Vegas Tour, but he certainly was not going to be telling an audience about a particular song, i.e., where it came from, what it means, hey buy my new album, it's great! in 1974 or since. He is not that kind of person or performer.
Glad the Del Shannon box set came up as I was the guy who brought it to Greil's attention almost two years ago when it was released. No, I haven't gotten it yet, but I've come to realize that Del was a pretty good songwriter, although he never eclipsed Runaway. But he knew the craft pretty well, although largely a hack of sorts, like most or all writers. His 1967 LP The Further Adventures of Charles Westover (his real name) is great and I think the fact that it failed commercially at the time, sort of killed his spirit and he became resigned to Dick Clark oldies tours until Tom Petty re-discovered him and tried to help him later. Did his suicide come about because of a bad reaction to Prozac? Was he disappointed by not being asked to replace Roy Orbison in the Traveling Wilburys as rumored? I don't know, but here was a guy out of nowhere who made a name for himself as a good rock 'n roll artist, however unlikely that was for a homely looking guy from Michigan and left behind songs and a style which were pretty unique in their own right. As one of his early LPs read: Hats Off To Del!
For what it is worth (not much, alas), I took Harris's comments differently, though I did not see The View (don't watch it). But from the interviews I saw, I thought she was attempting to not give the right a gotcha moment. This seemed most apparent in the interview with Dana Bash, who kept trying to get her to say something that likely would have been taken out of context and used as a sound bite. This was done with some of her other comments. And I did hear her say what you suggested should have been her reply, but after she was on The View. Just tossing this into the mix because, well, we're screwed, so why not? And I was at the Dylan and the Band show in '74. Glad I get to listen to it again, as I was with someone who was just not into it and it her sighs and lack of interest cut into my focus.
Greil, I wrote something similar on the old (thankfully still existent!) website, but I would LOVE a big book of your previously uncollected pieces from the '70s. "Rock-a-Hula Clarified," that great Bicentennial piece... so much great, great writing that really oughta be on the bookshelf and not just online, although I'm truly grateful for the efforts of everyone who's worked to make the latter possible!
I'd somehow never really thought about just how much new-to-me writing of yours must be out there until you started up that old site back in the Obama years. After all, my bookshelves were very well stocked! But the books didn't start appearing regularly until LIPSTICK TRACES, by which time you were just barely older than I am now, which means there were MANY years of writing that were "missing." DUSTBIN OF HISTORY and FASCIST BATHROOM obviously picked up some of that older work, but there's still so much out there. I'd enthusiastically buy a book (or more!) of the best of it.
Well Mr. Marcus you sure were right about Kamala Harris. The question now is how we can dodge the games of those who are about to further lodge the rules of the road.
The closest I got to seeing the Dylan and the Band tour was sending an entry to the ticket lottery, which did not win despite my having borrowed a pen from a nun to address it. That would have been one of the Inglewood Forum shows. I also very dearly wanted to see Bruce Springsteen when he was opening for Dr. John at the Forum, but could find no public transportation there from where I was.
"Rock-a-Hula Clarified" was in the first issue of Creem I ever saw, on a newsstand in Boulder. It starts with a variation on the classic joke: John Simon, Erich Segal, and Little Richard walk into a bar...or the Dick Cavett Show. It changed everything for me. Thanks for that, Greil.
Even Greil cops to the double-standard on Harris v. Trump, i.e., while Trump can go out and behave and say things that would get any other public person, let alone politician, drummed out of the public sphere, Harris has to be perfect for whatever reason. I mean, the choice is between a rational, intelligent, capable, experienced public servant and a goddamn lunatic and people want to nit-pick on a question she may have answered less than perfectly. Sheesh!
Re: Bob Dylan introducing his songs onstage, maybe he did that in Greenwich Village days or god help us, on the '78 Vegas Tour, but he certainly was not going to be telling an audience about a particular song, i.e., where it came from, what it means, hey buy my new album, it's great! in 1974 or since. He is not that kind of person or performer.
Glad the Del Shannon box set came up as I was the guy who brought it to Greil's attention almost two years ago when it was released. No, I haven't gotten it yet, but I've come to realize that Del was a pretty good songwriter, although he never eclipsed Runaway. But he knew the craft pretty well, although largely a hack of sorts, like most or all writers. His 1967 LP The Further Adventures of Charles Westover (his real name) is great and I think the fact that it failed commercially at the time, sort of killed his spirit and he became resigned to Dick Clark oldies tours until Tom Petty re-discovered him and tried to help him later. Did his suicide come about because of a bad reaction to Prozac? Was he disappointed by not being asked to replace Roy Orbison in the Traveling Wilburys as rumored? I don't know, but here was a guy out of nowhere who made a name for himself as a good rock 'n roll artist, however unlikely that was for a homely looking guy from Michigan and left behind songs and a style which were pretty unique in their own right. As one of his early LPs read: Hats Off To Del!
For what it is worth (not much, alas), I took Harris's comments differently, though I did not see The View (don't watch it). But from the interviews I saw, I thought she was attempting to not give the right a gotcha moment. This seemed most apparent in the interview with Dana Bash, who kept trying to get her to say something that likely would have been taken out of context and used as a sound bite. This was done with some of her other comments. And I did hear her say what you suggested should have been her reply, but after she was on The View. Just tossing this into the mix because, well, we're screwed, so why not? And I was at the Dylan and the Band show in '74. Glad I get to listen to it again, as I was with someone who was just not into it and it her sighs and lack of interest cut into my focus.
Greil, I wrote something similar on the old (thankfully still existent!) website, but I would LOVE a big book of your previously uncollected pieces from the '70s. "Rock-a-Hula Clarified," that great Bicentennial piece... so much great, great writing that really oughta be on the bookshelf and not just online, although I'm truly grateful for the efforts of everyone who's worked to make the latter possible!
I'd somehow never really thought about just how much new-to-me writing of yours must be out there until you started up that old site back in the Obama years. After all, my bookshelves were very well stocked! But the books didn't start appearing regularly until LIPSTICK TRACES, by which time you were just barely older than I am now, which means there were MANY years of writing that were "missing." DUSTBIN OF HISTORY and FASCIST BATHROOM obviously picked up some of that older work, but there's still so much out there. I'd enthusiastically buy a book (or more!) of the best of it.
Well Mr. Marcus you sure were right about Kamala Harris. The question now is how we can dodge the games of those who are about to further lodge the rules of the road.
The closest I got to seeing the Dylan and the Band tour was sending an entry to the ticket lottery, which did not win despite my having borrowed a pen from a nun to address it. That would have been one of the Inglewood Forum shows. I also very dearly wanted to see Bruce Springsteen when he was opening for Dr. John at the Forum, but could find no public transportation there from where I was.