Last night the promo on NBC’s local news ran a teaser about a woman who was electrocuted by an exposed wire in the snow on a New York street. The teaser ended with “Con ed takes the blame.” A sad story, of course, but my mind immediately flashed to the Bob Dylan song “Joey”, a tribute to mobster Crazy Joe Gallo who, sometime in the 1970s, was shot while dining in Umberto’s Clam House in Little Italy, and which has the line:
“Let’s blow this place to kingdom come, let Con Edison take the blame”
I have to believe the copy writer also made the connection. After all there are so many possible ways to express that same idea
Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ
BTW, my wife had the same reaction you’re probably having right now, too.
Funny you should mention that. I recently tried to rent Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid and not only don’t any of the video stores have it but none of the staff has heard of it.
i absolutely love the kind of experience u describe
when suddenly, out-of-the-blue, something like that comes up and just for a moment, it’s as if all the cameras and anchors and final control facilities and broadcast equipment and aerials and tv sets dissapear and u, U, r connected to another human being u’ll never meet, never see and if it wasn’t for that one line of copy, might never have known existed
and then, i can’t help myself, i think of the silent moment of joy that person experienced when they wrote that line
with a silent smile, not knowing if anyone would pick up on the ref
just knowing that it was a good line and had to be written
and just for the briefest of moments, the loneliness lifts
Right you are Raphael. That’s one of my favorite Bob albums, even if I find myself occassionally wishing that “Joey” came in a “Reader’s Digest condensed” version.
Saw Dave Matthews recently and one of the highpoints of the show was him dueting on “Oh Sister” with Emmylou Harris. The local Seattle Times critic completely missed the historical connection…
Raphael, you’ve gotta see Masked and Anonymous! That movie is fantastic! As a big-time Dylan fan, I loved it, but I think non-fans could really appreciate it too…at least that’s what I always like to think until non-fans just can’t see it…regardless, it’s a masterpiece. And speaking of Dylan’s recent masterpieces…what about Chronicles Vol. 1? That is the best thing I’ve read that’s been written in the past 50 years.
On an unrelated note, I just found out that Bob is going to be playing all over Europe this fall. Just so happens that I’m moving to Prague in a couple weeks and he’ll be playing there November 7th. I feel so incredibly lucky that Bob and I both decided to skip out of the States for the cooler months. Seeing Bob in Prague and hopefully at least once more in Germany somewhere is going to be a whole new wonderful experience. Oh, I love seeing Dylan shows!
Some of my favorite Dylan quotes come from Brownsville Girl, like
The only thing we knew about Henry Porter ws that his name wasn’t Henry Porter.
and
Strange how people who suffer together have stronger connections than people who are most content.
I don’t have any regrets, they can talk about me plenty when I’m gone.
You always said people don’t do what they believe in, they just do what’s most convenient, then they repent.
And I always said, “Hang on to me, baby, and let’s hope that the roof stays on.”
This week’s New Yorker has an article on Lucretius poem, “On the Nature of Things”. Apparently it was lost for a number of century’s only to be found in 1417 by one, Poggius Florentinus or Poggio the Florentine.
Well, Frank Zappa fans and afficionados will know where I’m going with this. Jump several centuries to the 1975 album, One Size Fits All, with the song, “Florentine Pogen”.
Well, I just love it when things make sense even if it takes 36 years to do so. What did Zappa read to inspire this song, I wonder? And if you don’t know this album, introduce yourself. It is a treat.
