i'll let you be in my dreams if i can be in yours

Looks like this next list is not gonna be a tough choice: there are multiple votes, kicked off by Sister Libby, for a Bob Dylan Top 5 list. I guess the interesting thing about my musical "relationship" with Bob Dylan is that I prefer his more recent, blues-y stuff to his classic folk songs.
I must dedicate this post to my good pal Michele, who is undoubtedly among Dylan's most loyal and devoted followers.

My Top 5 Favourite Bob Dylan Songs

1. "Things Have Changed" from the Wonder Boys soundtrack
This has been my favourite Bob Dylan song since I first started listening to him about five years ago. It would be insultingly obvious to state that the lyrics are incredible. I in particular get a kick out of the line "Gonna take dancing lessons, do the jitterbug right"
Bob Dylan jitterbugging....people are crazy and times are strange, indeed.

2. "Dreamin' Of You" from The Bootleg Series Vol. 8: Tell Tale Signs

Recorded in the late 90's but unreleased until 2008, this song shows a side of Dylan I've always found intriguing: lovestruck. To me, Dylan is more of an entity than a person, and it's hard to imagine him being infatuated with a lowly human. And yet, he writes such honest and striking love songs.

3. "Ballad of a Thin Man" from Highway 61 Revisited
Sure, I prefer recent Dylan but that doesn't mean I've fully neglected his excellent 60's stuff. The version on the playlist below isn't quite the ideal but I do love his derisive tone. I got hipped to this song the first time I saw Dylan in concert, in 2005, when he did an awesome version of it.

4. "Love Sick" from Time Out of Mind

The soundtrack for Dylan's infamous Victoria's Secret "sell out", this is another case of seeing the unexpected vulnerabilites of Dylan in love. It's beyond bizarre to hear his plaint of "I just don't know what to do, I'd give anything to be with you" - what kind of woman in her right mind would reject Dylan?
It's a sick world out there.

5. "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" from Bringing It All Back Home
Probably one of Dylan's most quotable songs, it definitely goes without saying that the lyrics are astonishingly good, but my favourite part is the swift guitar...riff. Would you call it a "riff"? In any case, this brilliant track not only says a lot but it really says something.

BOB DYLAN

Which artist next? It's all in your hands!

take it easy, baby, take it as it comes

What my past couple weeks has felt like, in pictures:

out of the blue, into the black, they give you this, but you pay for that

This week was the week of concert epic-ness. For those of you paying attention, the Universe loved me enough to bless me with consecutive Neil Young-then-Bob Dylan concerts.

On Wednesday, Nicola, Michele, Shannon and I went to go see Neil Young. Our seats were balcony, our view was as such:

and that's with the camera on zoom!

but the concert was absolutely phenomenal. It's a cliche, I know, but I can't put it any other way: He just plain fuckin' rocked. Thrashing around, spastic guitar solos, pissed-off wails...I have so much respect for him, but I had never really thought of myself as a "Neil Young fan". No more! The hightlight? Probably the epic cover of "A Day in the Life" for the encore. Any Neil Young fans should check it out here. There was a fierce intensity behind his second "I love to turn you on", and at the end of the song, he starting ripping out his guitar strings and mashing them against his guitar, pressing it against the amps. In the video I linked, the strings start flying around the 6:00 mark, and its pretty damn rock'n'roll. He played for almost 2 1/2 hours too.The next day, we headed home to mentally prepare ourselves for seeing Bob Dylan.
In case you forgot, my friends and I had third row tickets. That meant we were pretty damn close.
Close enough to see ever time he smiled (about five times!! Be still my heart..) or nodded a cue to the band. Frankly, a lot of the songs he played were unrecognizable he changed the melody so much. This might be why the local paper gave him a poor review. However, it's not a Pussycat Dolls concert...you don't go there to be entertained by an "artist" trying ridiculously hard to sell you something you didn't know you needed. You go to bask in his glorious presesnce, to gaze upon his unearthly being with your very eyes, to swoon over his clumsily graceful stomping pseudo-dance.
I had seen Bob Dylan before, but I hadn't seen him play guitar, so I was elated when he played guitar (instead of keys, which he played for the rest of the show) on "Just Like a Woman".

Both concerts were also a study in Baby Boomers Behaving Badly. Bending over to toke up where the security couldn't see, trying to sneak into seats they didn't have, getting ridiculously wasted and flailing around...the over 50 set clearly thought they owned the place solely due to their proximity in age to the artist. While us teens and young adults watched in quiet, respectful awe, the Boomers were having the time of their lives. It was a joy to behold.
In forty years, that will be me, drunkenly dancing offbeat while a grizzly old Alex Turner mumbles "I Bet You Look Good On the Dancefloor" from onstage.
I can't wait.

a voice like sand and glue, his words of truthful vengeance, they could pin us to the floor

Another post, another reason for you to passionately hate me...
There's no easy way to put this so I'll just come out with it.
I'm going to see Neil Young. Amazing and exciting, I know. The end of my fantastic news? Hardly!
For I also recently acquired tickets to another concert...I can hardly speak his holy name, but a picture's worth a thousand words and this post is kind of runty.

Yes, that's right...Him. I can almost not type the words, for I am not worthy enough, but in a few short weeks, I will be seeing

Bob Dylan

for the second time. Yes, the second time. If you know of someone luckier than I, speak now or forever hold your peace.
What a life I lead! (The only bad news is that my Sly & the Family Stone concert was postponed and then cancelled, but I can live with that) Did I mention my Dylan tickets are third row? Did I mention that it's the day after the Neil Young concert? Did I mention it's Bob Dylan??
Oh, yeah, I did. Just so you don't hate me too much, I'll gift you with these amazing Dylan pictures.

you do not outgrow sexy

It's my 250th post (I'm a quarter of the way to a thousand!) and thought I needed to celebrate. BUT HOW? Then I saw that People magazine is preparing for it's Hottest Bachelor issue. Their Hottest Bachelor is usually lame (last year it was Taylor Hicks, which I can sum up rather aptly with "EW!"), and usually is pretty unfamous five years later. I realized all my favorite sex symbols have managed to stay sexy for at least twenty years...sometimes fifty years!
You know what's coming, right? The semi-annual sexiest men alive list, as decided by me and my hormones.
Instead of Ten Sexiest, I choose my main crew of guys who make me jump when I see them appear on TV. It rounds out to six, and for your visual pleasure, you will see how they've grown in sexiness from their youth to in the past year.
IN ALPHABETICAL (by last names) ORDER!
-C.C. Deville
The only newcomer to My Sexy Lists. I admit, he's not really doing it for me in the hair-metal phase (toooooo muchhhhh blushhh)
I've already posted on how I simply for the life of me cannot understand just why I think he's so sexy. Whenever I see him on the Surreal Life, I just die. I adore his voice most of all.

-Bob Dylan

Genius and good looks...yessss.
Doesn't he just make your day everytime you see him?

-Mick Jagger

I've been practicing my English accent so if I ever run into him, I can go "Right then, Mick, luv, fancy a shag?"
I loove his wrinkles. If he ever got Botox, I think I would cry. He looks so dignified. And I love his hair! Now, then, always and forever.

-Prince
If you're surprised...

....then you must be new to Ashcan Rantings.

-Jack Nicholson

Definitely my favorite actor ever. I will watch anything with him. Has he ever been in a bad movie?
No. Because even if the movie's bad, you don't notice because he just amuses you with his presence.
But, seriously, if you haven't seen it, rent The Departed now. And Easy Rider. And Chinatown. And Batman.

-Keith Richards
Oh, Keith. Ohhh, Keith. You snorted your father's ashes? Cool! You had all your blood removed and then replaced with heroin-free blood? Sexy!
You exist? Yesss, and it makes my world go round.

now that i know how to upload videos...

Happy birthday, Bob Dylan.

a goood weekend

I got the new Arctic Monkeys CD, Favourite Worst Nightmare and it's very good. Not quite as good as Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, but that album is pretty classic, hard to top. Alex Turner is just so so so sexy and brilliant.
I slept over at Nicola's and we watched the awesomely softpornographic Marianne Faithfull movie Girl on a Motorcycle. 80% of the movie is her on a motorcycle (in a skintight leather catsuit, with random close ups of her ass) and the other 20% is her having sex (in nothing). Still, worth watching to gaze at her amazing...haircut. What did you think I was going to say, perv?
Then we watched the Incredible, Incredible, Classic, Trippy, Wonderful Yellow Submarine. Something that isn't really thought about much today is the great wit of the Beatles. I know they didn't write the script, but it's quite funny. Like the "We're senile delinquents!" line when they get caught in the time warp and go all old. And Ringo's "hole in my pocket"...and it goes on and on.
Then in the morning, we watched Factory Girl. It got pretty bad reviews, but I enjoyed it, except the last little bit. I though it was a fun movie...EXCEPT Hayden Christiansen's horrible, awful, Natasha's-last-photoshoot-bad portrayel of Bob Dylan. I could hardly look at him and I felt very nauseous whenever he was onscreen. No wonder Bob Dylan didn't want the movie released. He probably doesn't want to be portrayed as some ridiculous crack fool...actually Bob Dylan is too cool for all of this. But his 'people' know its wrong.
And it is.
So so fantastically wrong