Waiting for Dylan
A favorite Bob Dylan encounter story, as told to me by an old pal
This past Sunday night, I went to see my old friend Anders Parker perform a solo show at the Red Owl Collective, a groovy little antique mall in Kingston, NY. I wrote about Anders’ latest record, the profoundly moving The Black Flight, here at Jagged Time Lapse back in November. If you missed that post, you can read it here:
Anders, whom I first met back in the late 1980s when our respective bands Triangular Y and Voodoo Sex Party shared a bill at the Mid-Hudson Arts Center, played a wonderful set, and he casually mentioned during the course of it that the night was actually the 11th anniversary of the death of Sean Thompson, his longtime friend and musical compadre.
This seemed oddly poetic, as Sean had been the guitarist in Triangular Y; it had been the more outgoing Sean who’d dragged me and my bandmate Bob up to sing backing vocals that night on their rendition of the Velvets’ “There She Goes Again,” and with whom I subsequently became close friends during my senior year at Vassar.
Sean, as I believe anyone who knew him would also attest, was a mercurial, infuriating and at times extremely difficult person to be around; but he was also a tremendously funny and talented dude who made a couple of really good albums in the mid-nineties under the name Long River Train. He was also, during the relatively brief time I knew him, an incredibly loyal and supportive friend, who encouraged me to keep writing songs despite my awful and derivative early attempts at it. He even filled in for me a couple of times on my 1960s music radio show on WVKR, and I still have a vivid memory of him mixing The Strawberry Alarm Clock’s “Nightmare of Percussion” into the Velvets’ “Heroin” in a way that both completely blew my mind and totally pissed me off because I hadn’t thought to do it first.
Several of the other attendees at Anders’ gig on Sunday were old friends of his and Sean’s, and so we all wound up standing around for about a half hour after the show telling Sean stories. “You know Sean’s Bob Dylan story, right?” I asked Anders.
“What? No, I don’t think so,” he replied, so I told Anders and the other folks the whole thing right there. It’s one of my all-time favorite Dylan encounter stories; it happened in the October 1989, when His Bobness was in Poughkeepsie to play a show at the Mid-Hudson Civic Center — the much-larger venue across from the MHAC — on his “never-ending tour,” which was in retrospect still in its early stages. Sean told me the story in person about a month later, when I’d come back to Poughkeepsie over Thanksgiving break to see my then-girlfriend, who was still at Vassar.
This would/should be Sean’s story to tell — I wasn’t there for it — but he’s no longer here with us, the story needs to live on, and I don’t think he’d mind me recounting it here to the best of my recollection…
It’s early afternoon on Friday, October 20, 1989, and Sean is running some errands along the three-block stretch of Raymond Avenue that runs North-South between the Vassar College campus and the East-West arterial. As he’s trudging up the street, he sees a man and a woman get out of a car up ahead of him and walk towards the entrance of a nearby Mexican restaurant — and in that brief moment before they go inside, Sean realizes that the man is no less than Bob Dylan himself, looking more or less like he does on the cover of Q magazine above. Whatever else is on Sean’s to-do list is now firmly relegated to the back seat, as Sean impulsively decides to drop everything and follow the couple into the restaurant.
As much of a loose cannon as Sean can sometimes be, he instinctively understands the rules about being cool, especially where a musical luminary of this magnitude is concerned. Seeing that Dylan and his date have already been seated in a secluded booth by the time he walks into the restaurant, he knows better than to run up to their table and ruin their lunch with his gushing fanboy enthusiasm. Sean desperately wants to meet the Mighty Zimm, but figures that the smart way to play it is to just grab a seat at the restaurant’s bar and kill time with a beer or two. Then, once they’re done with their meal, he’ll follow the couple out to the street and respectfully thank Dylan for his music, and maybe even ask him for an autograph.
Dylan and his companion enjoy a leisurely lunch; they’re a little too far away for Sean to eavesdrop on their conversation, so he simply nurses a bottle or two of liquid courage and pretends to be minding his own business. Finally, they pay their bill and get up to leave; Sean drops some cash on the bar, and quietly slips off his stool to follow them out of the restaurant. He’s standing directly behind them right when Dylan opens the door to the street and runs directly into a portly, aging, pony-tailed hippie in a tie-dye shirt who’s on his way into the restaurant.
“OH MY GOD!” the stunned hippie cries, his mind exploding into a million pieces. “IT’S BOB DYLAN! YOU’RE THE VOICE OF A GENERATION! WHAT DID YOU MEAN WHEN YOU WROTE —”
Before the hippie can get another word out, Dylan plants a hand firmly on his face, palm to nose, and pushes hard, like the guy’s a tie-dyed, pony-tailed, swinging door. The “voice of a generation” silently moves past him — walks through him, really — and onto the sidewalk, whereupon the couple turns right and begins sauntering down the block together.
Sean is completely mortified by the hippie’s unseemly behavior, and equally frustrated by the realization that this guy has just ruined his best-laid Bob-meeting plan. Still, he decides that he might as well at least try to press on and see it through to its conclusion, whatever that may be; after all, he’s waited this long, and he might never have another chance to meet his idol.
Walking briskly but stealthily — he knows that running up to Dylan from behind will only spook him further — Sean finally falls in step with the couple. “Excuse me, Mr. Dylan,” he says, walking close enough for the man to hear him, but just far enough away to remain out of punching distance, “I’m really sorry about what happened with that idiot back there. But I’m a really big fan of yours, and I was wondering if… maybe I could get your autograph?”
Dylan keeps moving and doesn’t turn his head to face Sean, but simply squints at him out of the corner of his eye.
“I… don’t really DO that kind of thing, Son,” he croaks.
“Hey man, that’s cool — I totally understand,” Sean responds, keeping it light and jovial. “Anyway, thanks for all the great music, and I hope you have a really good show tonight.”
“Thank you,” Dylan says, still walking and squinting. “I appreciate that.”
And then Dylan goes Dylan’s way, and Sean goes Sean’s.
You may call him Bobby, or you may call him Zimmy. Just don’t call him out ON THE SIDEWALK!
My sympathies to both the hero and the complication in this story. I've met a fair # of celebrities, and am usually unimpressed, but on those rare occasions when I've met someone who means a great deal to me, I ALWAYS seem to bollocks it up. Even though I do my best to be as cool as Sean, I somehow end up being the guy on the sidewalk anyway.... which is why if I ever see Paul McCartney in the wild, I'm going to watch till he's out of sight and say not a single word to him. It's safer for both Macca and me that way.