My Dinner With Bob Dylan...

...'s multi-talented bass player - electric and upright - Tony Garnier, backstage at Lincoln's Loon Mountain in the foothills of New Hampshire's o-so-scenic Presidential Range, was more than I ever could have dared hope for!

Well, it wasn't quite dinner for me as I sipped self-consciously at coffee while he, Tony (and numerous other of Bob Dylan's entourage) dined on rather fancy cuisine before the upcoming concert as 3500 fans or so ranged the slopes fronting the massive stage while Dylan rested on his private bus.

I happen to be backstage because I know somebody who knows somebody who it actually turns out knows somebody else and because of this long-distance connection reached through Jeff Firestone via T-Bone Wolk, with the aid of a seldom-seen Nick Branch, I, with Jill Robert and Ann and Jeff Firestone, am sitting here with Tony, Larry Campbell, Bob's 'to die for handsome' the women noted and we agreed, rhythm guitar player, plus a couple other fellows whose names escape me but were extremely pleasant (including Bob's manager who said when I asked if the papers he was was poring over at the table - me a big know-it-all right? - were part and parcel of the intricate strategies of keeping things perfected on tour, said,'Actually it's the menu...'), and made us each feel comfortable and at ease...and there was Baron, about whom more anon...

A backstage pass is absolutely golden.

We arrived to find a line outside the spacious grounds which stretched 800 people long and cars were streaming in. We asked a parking lot attendant to tell us how to get our set-aside tickets and he directed us to a window where there was another line, probably six people in the whole thing. Already we're ahead of the game.

At the window they finally find our tickets sealed in an envelope as we waited (breathlessly) patiently, and then we went off to get in line with the 1000 ahead of us - yes it grew 200 in five minutes, but...

...enter the backstage pass, which we flashed back at the window and asked if the procedure was the same, like get in line, but she said o no - go over there and pointed to a spot where there was no line,nobody - and in we go, flashing our blue triangular BACKSTAGE badges.

Inside, two gleaming semis, a Pete and a Kenny if you want to know, with shiny non-committalboxes (no lettering except on the truck doors and it was called UpStaging) and which held the stage and all its scaffolding and a variety of other paraphernalia and who knows how many personnel, 30 maybe, maybe more, all of whom went on the road each time the tour took off and then with military precision, set up again next day 200-300 miles distant, an adult-size erector set astonishing to behold, not to mention all the band equipment - amps, monitors, instruments, wires, heaters - on and on the list goes until finally...the show must go on...

THIRTY FEET WAS ABOUT AS CLOSE...

...as I got to Dylan and he couldn't respond very well to my scintillating inquiries nor laugh with unbridled glee at my clever ripostes because he was busy singing and playing guitar at the moment; there it was, that raspin' & rheumin' voice of his by which I've been mesmerised since 1962 - for 34 years I've never wavered in my affection for the greatest troubador of all time; the Newport switch from open-hole acoustic to Fender Strat endeared him to me all the more.

'...I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more...'
'...Hey Mr. Tambourine man play a song for me...'

AND, AS I SAY, THERE WAS BARON...

...leonine, not too tall, quiet appearing, but he wasn't kidding me...beneath that casual jump suit he wore, muscles rippled like windflaws across water. He sat with us and with a big cherubic smile was introduced and shook hands all around. Baron being Bob's personal bodyguard and chief of security, which is formidable. 'Baron,' Tony explained later, '...is from a family of martial arts instructors (from Hawaii I think he said), 3rd generation. He was recently featured on the cover of Black Belt magazine.'

(I better cut him some slack, I thought; I'll be on my best behavior so he won't need to demonstrate any of his capabilities...Christ I couldn't even outrun the guy!)

Watching Dylan, Tony, Larry and the rest of the band on stage later that night in the surrealistic sunset I tried to weld the moment to me, to concentrate so hard on what I was seeing and hearing that I would carry it with me for the rest of my life, and even though the night itself is now 11 years ago, not a moment of it is lost to me.

...and even though (as is the wont of NFTD) I've rather gone on at length about this singular event in my life, I really can't put in words what the night did for me emotionally, historically, philosophically...

O, and gustatorily too, because when everyone had exited left and left me I made the rounds of the board and bolted down enough food in three minutes - what pecan pie! what cookies! - to feed two for a day.

WELL SO MUCH FOR SCHMOOZIN' WITH HISTORY...

...today it was back to reality, harsh reality in the cold glare light of a new rainy day - the gas in the car is low, the lights about to get cut off, holes in the shoes and so on ad nauseum, the same old plaints unrequited, but I ain't dead yet and I'm grown horny (no not THAT horny, the other one as in calloused) to adversity, indeed would be lost without the challenges afforded by privation; in fact I do not really look forward to the inevitable day when I escape the indiscriminating clutches of poverty into the world of Versailles-style wealth because I'll have nothing about which to complain and, as you know, that is anathema to me and'd be the end of NFTD; nay, nay I say, I don't see my alter ego and me installed in regally appointed Tuscan digs, somnambulant with torpor from the fine foods and wines, ah yes a life of ease is not for me I prophesy...

O woe is poor poor pitiful me I yowl into the star-studded night!