Just because you don’t judge don’t mean you won’t be judged. Ask me. I’ve got so many unsatisfied judgements out against me I’ve grown callous. Life is a paint ball shoot out. Dig it.

Just because you’ve got yourself a Revolution doesn’t mean you’ve got a good revolution. That’s one thing I hold aginst Latter Day Bob, he has us waist deep in the Big Muddy with no way across the channel. Bob’s got bill’s to pay.

Baez was a doormat. If you’ve read her latest ranting about Obama, I think ER highlighted it a couple days ago (this is 8/7/08), she’s slipped off the deep end. Two or three years younger than me too. Hard to the lovelies age and harden up. If you read Freewheelin’ Times carefully there’s a lot of concealed bitterness in there, check out the drunken driver’s license drop again. Suze’s got some hard feelings but why should she be vicious? I’m not going to say any hard things about the girls I’ve dated but I wouldn’t date most of them again. When Bob called recently Suze ignored him. Are those hard feelings?

I’m sure Sara has been taught if you don’t have anything good to say about someone don’t say anything at all. She just got a plain raw deal but more on that later.

And, Ralph, Dylan is a public figure who has made, as you say, his impact on the world. He’s made his impact on me. So whether he wants to be analyzed or not, it’s his due as public figure. He sould be more than flattered that high quality writers take time out of their lives to analyze him. Call it a tribute. It was either Bob or Tiny Tim. I just don’t tiptoe through the tulips with anyone, that’s all.

As for what sort of womanizer he might have been back in the day, it’s interesting that two of the three women who figured most prominently in his early life — Rotolo as well as Joan Baez in her two autobiographies — have mostly good things to say about him. Only Sarah has kept her silence.

The deal with Dylan’s situation is that back in 1960 he decided to influence my life by becoming a recording star. My life and a couple two or three generations by now. You forfeit something by doing that; there is a high price to pay. Part of it is that you voluntarily subject yourself to the scrutiny of those you have affected just as I leave myself open to your criticism by voluntarily placing my thoughts before you.

I have no right to complain about your objections nor does Bob have any right to complain about writers investigating him. He’s published a memoir for gosh sakes. There is no excuse for people showing up in his bedroom while he’s sleeping but then ’sometimes even the President of the United States must have to stand naked.’ It’s just what Bob bought into.

I am half angry at Bob because to a lesser extent than Toby Thompson I bought into Bob’s rhetoric. Now I’m looking for Something Of Value in what he said and I’m not finding it. All I can do is repeat Bob’s words:

Nothing was delivered
And I tell this truth to you
Not in spite or in anger
But simply ’cause it’s true.

Best to you, Jan.