Paranoid Refugee - Dylan meets the Press
THE NEW BREED
Little Bobby does a message (for mankind)
In striped black pants, velvet boots, polkadot shirt and blue corduroy jacket, little Bobby Dylan, singer and songwriter, was draped across his chair fondly sucking his thumb.
And as Quick Draw McGraw and his kiddy cartoon characters played on the television screen, little Bobby clapped his hands and emitted gleeful, squeaky sounds of pleasure.
Pygmy-sized, pallid-faced, with long fluffy hair, Bob Dylan is the latest and strangest of the new breed of mop-haired anti-socialite, non-conformist, pseudo-beatnik comedians to invade Sydney.
And although his songs, raved and written about as brilliant, have a message to mankind, little Bobby had startlingly little to say.
In fact, he bore the expression of a man being wheeled out of the operating theatre still under anaesthetic.
Throughout the 45 minutes of nonsensical spluttering, ho hum mumbling, and vague gabbling, I received the distinct impression he was trying to say something, but didn't know what.
In the end, I chucked the towel in my search for a person beneath the empty shell, since it appeared to be like fossicking for a pin in Sydney harbour.
And when, giggling like an amused baby, he explained his songs came to him while tubbing in the backyard and blinking at the blue sky, I could believe it.
Asked what he did before he scribbled songs and sung them, he said "I was a thief - cars, antennas, radios, you know."
Ever caught?
"Yes, once, by a priest - he converted me and I became a folk-singer."
Little Bobby chuckled, and it sounded something like a jackass laughing, a teakettle boiling and a hen laying an egg.
What would he describe himself as?
"A tree surgeon."
What does he think about poets?
He doesn't 'dig' them - "super-romantic, paranoid refugees."
About himself?
"What about you?"
The hit parade?
"It bugs me."
Australia?
"They don't have a baseball team here."
[by Uli Schmetzer, 'On The Fringe', Sydney Sun, April ? 1966]
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