Talking New York, Dylan and More with Peter McKenzie (Part II)

Includes recent Peter McKenzie interview

When I heard this spring that Peter McKenzie's book Bob Dylan: On a Couch and Fifty Cents a Day was coming out soon,  I asked for an introduction in hopes of obtaining an interview. I'd heard that it contained new insights into young Bob Dylan's first year in New York. After we'd spoken a couple times, the interview was delayed because he'd made a promise to ISIS that he would wait till they'd published an interview he'd done with them. 

By the time my turn had come I'd purchased and read the book. Ironically, all the questions I'd initially prepared to ask during the interview were answered in the book. I set about to adjust my game plan and just follow our conversation wherever it went. 

Peter was 15 when 19-year-old Bob Dylan took up a form of residence in his home. There's a sense in which they were like siblings who shared a special bond. Peter admits, "Yes, I idolized him. He was like the big brother I never had. He treated me like a kid sibling. He talked to me about a lot of stuff." 

What follows here are a few anecdotes about Peter's Harvard experience, his career, Bob's songs and insights about the choices we make. At the end there's a link to the book and the first part of this two part interview.

School Days

My senior year at Harvard I had a solo suite with my own bathroom. I was painting, and had a window overlooking the Charles River. Right next door to me were two roommates with whom I became good friends. We used to have breakfast and dinner together a lot. One was Al Gore and the other Tommy Lee Jones.

When Tommy Lee was shooting the first Men In Black, they were doing a scene right outside my now wife’s apartment. I went downstairs and they were on a shooting break. I tapped him on the shoulder and he almost choked. He turned around and said, “Hey Pete!” and I said, “Hi, Tommy, how are ya. I see how well you’re doing. I don’t want to disturb you while you’re at work.” 

Peter's Career

Illustration for Joseph Papp, NY Shakespeare
Festival; Peter McKenzie

I went to the Harvard Graduate School of Architecture. I was going to become an architect. I didn’t like it, so I left. Then I went to Europe and I wound up meeting a couple people in France who were Dutch. I had my harmonica and harmonica holder with me. We went and played on the streets of Paris. They had a guitar with them, so they gave me the guitar and it was the most money I made in an hour, playing on the streets of Paris. “Bob Dylan! Bob Dylan!” It was very funny.

They invited me to visit them when I went to the Netherlands (they lived just outside Amsterdam) and I wound up playing for a couple months in their rock and roll band. 

I came back to the states and embarked on a career as an illustrator and a graphic designer, which I did for many many many many many many years. I had my own little company. I worked for myself designing books, illustrating books and illustrating book covers. That’s what I did. 

Bob always liked to talk to me about my art. It’s the one subject he never challenged me on. You know, he’s the musician of the family; I’m the artist in the family. And I make no comment about Bob’s art other than to say I think he has a great color sense, a great sense of color. God bless him that he likes to draw and paint. 

As the musician and writer, that’s his thing, his talent.

I haven’t met half as many people as he has, and if I lived to be 200 I wouldn’t. Who hasn’t he met? He’s met everybody. That can change a person. That’s his life. As for me, I’ll always look at him different from anybody else. He used the gifts he had to get the life success he could. He had a great way with words and he was an excellent musician. And he was pretty cool at the stage that we were really close. That’s what I can say about him.

Bob’s Songs

1962. Photo credit: Ted Russell. 
Courtesy William Pagel Archives

You have all these people analyzing his songs.    I mean, I will give you two songs that I will tell you about. Obviously, most songs that a songwriter writes are going to have some kind of personal touch and say something about their life, but I will tell you two songs–and I want you to listen to them again. A lot of people know about them but they don’t understand the depth of his connection.

If you want to listen to two songs to try to understand Bob Dylan – and there’s also an earlier song – but if you really want to know the personal Bob Dylan, that’s real with no bull, (listen to) "Girl from the Red River Shore," and "When the Deal Goes Down." Listen to those two songs. You’ll understand what I mean after reading the book. That is personal. That’s feeling. 

So’s the one about Suze very personal, "Boots of Spanish Leather," but I’m talking about later on in life when he’s had all these life experiences. 

Those two songs… and they’re not angry songs, but I’m talking about when he’s sitting and reflecting about life, trying to make sense of it all. They mean a lot to me, because they really do reflect what’s going on in his head. It’s absolutely 100 per cent personal.  You don’t have to analyze every line. You just listen to the song and you get a sense of where he’s really at. They’re amazing.

Luckily, there was a tissue in my pocket the first time I heard “Girl from the Red River Shore.” It’s a knockout for me. I’m just condensing them down to a sensible core of what’s within his soul. It’s just unbelievable to me.

I’m sure there’s part of him that absolutely loves being famous, and loves to be adored the world over, but man, when he said that he walked into a diner and “everyone recognized me, that’s when it all changed.” That’s a horrible price to pay. He’s paid a big price. I couldn’t tell you, in all honesty, if he knew what was in store for him maybe he would’ve decided to just be a teacher. You know what I mean? I don’t know. I couldn’t tell you. 

His dream was to be as big as Harry Belafonte. That was it. He had no idea what was ahead. That’s why those two songs... that’s him away from the rest of the world. The reason he can say stuff like that is because most people don’t know the person he is. It shows what he’s gone through. And some of the longings he’s had and some of the loneliness and so forth.

We All Make Our Choices. 

I never thought of it this way, where people say he wouldn’t have made it unless he had the drive… I don’t think of it that way. I think of him as someone who had a dream, and had the guts to go out and try to fulfill it. 

The only thing I wrote about in that book were my experiences, my past experiences or maybe an experience that was told to me by somebody very close to me. For example, my friend Eric Herter went to a concert that I didn’t attend and told that funny story about the curtain almost knocking Bob over and he made that comment about leprosy. I’m sure I could read a million stories in books about Bob that I don’t know. That’s his life, not my life. There’s plenty about Bob I don’t know, but that wasn’t the point. 

Historian/author Sean (Wilentz) told Peter, “What you’ve done with your book is showed a big foundation of what made Bob who he is. Rather than trying to analyze every song or why he did this or why he did that, you’re showing a fundamental grab of the root of the person, and then the career happened." 

When I say what’s in that book is what all these people have been looking for, I meant it.

Links

BOB DYLAN: On A Couch & Fifty Cents A Day

A Visit with Peter McKenzie, Author of Bob Dylan: On A Couch & Fifty Cents A Day (Part One)

Almost Wordless Wednesday: Bob Boone's West Theater Renovation Is A Pretty Cool Deal

It's here. Finally experienced the resurrected West Theater. 

Brad Pitt as Roy McBride. His aims: to save the world and find his father.

Tommy Lee Jones as H. Clifford McBride

Ad Astra film review another day. 

The theater is comfy, and suitably retro.

Tuesdays are $5.00 and regular prices reasonable.

Do put it on your "to do" list to check it out.

Elements of a Great Film: No Country For Old Men

Essentially, a movie is a series of scenes. And the great movies have incredibly memorable scenes.

The Coen brothers' No Country For Old Men has  many. One standout for me is the scene in which Anton Chiguhr (Javier Bardem) is in the gas station with the unsuspecting owner near the beginning of the film. Bardem says, “What’s the most you ever lost on a coin toss?” The unsuspecting fellow is confused.

“Call it," the cold-blooded Bardem says.

The man behind the counter is clueless that everything he has ever scrimped and saved for is on the line. “We need to know what we’re calling it for here,” he says.

It’s an impeccable scene that foreshadows much that is to come regarding the nature of this character who is the embodiment of relentless evil. The manner in which Bardem is eating nuts, the manner in which the camera cuts to the squashed wrapper as it unfolds, again foreshadowing the unfolding of something frightening, produces compelling cinema, storytelling in film.

A great film is also about great lines. “Baby, things happen. And you can’t take ‘em back.” Llewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin) tells his wife once he realizes the danger she's in.

The great lines are what screenwriters live for. All the great films have great lines in them. You can hardly think of some of these films without immediately recalling a line... Films like Casablanca and The Wizard of Oz are rich with them. Quote the line and everybody knows exactly what you're talking about.

"We'll make him an offer he can't refuse." It's pure Brando.

“Houston, we have a problem.” ~ Apollo 13

“You can’t handle the truth.” ~ A Few Good Men

“Show me the money.” ~ Jerry Maguire

“Go ahead, make my day” ~ Sudden Impact

“What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.” ~ Cool Hand Luke

Garbo

Another feature of great films is casting. Not only are the main characters right for their jobs, the incidental characters are superbly selected. Casting is a strong feature of all the Coen brothers' films, and No Country is no exception.

When I first reviewed this film in 2008 I was critical of the casting of Tommy Lee Jones as Sheriff Ed Tom Bell and I was critical of the limited amount of screen time Woody Harrelson carried. I take back both of these criticisms now, having watched the film several times since its first screening in Duluth. At this point I can't even imagine anyone else in the role Jones played. and had Harrelson been given any further screen time it may have detracted from the film simply because he is such a compelling presence. He had to make an early departure only because this story was about the cat and mouse survival game being played out between Brolin and Bardem.

The ending may be a tad confusing for first time viewers, but the story needed to tie up a lot of loose ends quickly or it could have dragged out. The main conflicts in the film were resolved. And Sheriff Ed Tom was shaken to his core.

Another great line, from the mouth of Tommy Lee Jones: "You can't make up stuff like that."

And finally, among other things, there is the story itself. The essence of story is a moment in time in which the ordinary train of events in a character's life is shifted onto a new track. It may be something incidental, but like the railroad it will ultimately result an utterly different destination.

For Llewelyn Moss, his destiny was altered when he accidentally came across the aftermath of a shootout while out hunting in a remote region in West Texas. The former Viet Nam vet makes a decision that alters everything.

The skill with which the story is told makes all the difference in the world. The characters behave in ways that are believable. The sets, settings, pacing all conspire to keep the believability intact. A written story creates a dream in the reader's mind, and in film the dream is visually expressed, which involves risk. The Coen brothers have been pretty effective at it. Makes one wonder what will be next.

* * *

Featured eBook of the Day: The Red Scorpion ...my first book length story.

No Country for Old Men

Cormac McCarthy's book No Country for Old Men is an incredible story so very well told. I listen to audio books and this one made me want to keep driving. I could hardly wait for the morrow's commute.

It's one of the classic thriller story lines. An ordinary person accidentally gets caught up in extraordinary circumstances. Dustin Hoffman in Marathon Man is a nail-biter example of this genre. A Simple Plan, with Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton, is another.

And like any exceptional story, No Country has memorable characters. Llewelyn Moss is the unfortunate man who while hunting comes across a dope deal gone bad in the expansive back country of South Texas, and ends up with a satchel containing two million dollars in cash. There's a lesson here, though it is never stated as such: if you ever find a couple million dollars that are not yours, it's best to just stay out of it. Even though everyone involved in the transaction appears shot up and pretty much finished off, Moss knows that there will likely be others coming for the money. Little does he know how bad one of these others is.

NOTE: This Review Contains Spoilers

The guy who keeps you sitting straight up in your seat, and may keep you awake at night after, is Javier Bardem as Anton Chiguhr. Think sugar and chigger, and you have this pathological, human version of The Terminator, relentless in pursuit and seemingly indestructible. Nothing sweet about this man whose conscience is dead and determination unstoppable. Your heart rate increases every time he's on the screen.

No Country for Old Men has been receiving fabulous reviews. The Coen brothers (Fargo, O Brother, Where Art Thou?) wrote the screenplay and directed this first rate film. Like another current book adaptation, Charlie Wilson's War, there is much that has to be sifted out and only hinted at, lest we have something tiresome to watch after a while. The Coens were successful at creating the emotional tension that is generated by the book.

How did they do it? One noteworthy item is the total absence of a music soundtrack. They deserve high praise for avoiding the commercial temptation to make a music bed that would generate additional revenues afterward. Instead, they went the direct opposite way with this film. No music, no sound at all in the opening or closing credits. No fake strings section to tip viewers off that something bad is coming. The tension is created totally by the intersection of characters and circumstances. And it does get intense.

In terms of execution the film was flawless. Congrats to the Coens for their ability to bring everyone together and pull off this kind of feat.

But there were a number of problems for me with this film adaptation. First, Tommy Lee Jones as Sheriff Ed Tom Bell. I mean, I just couldn't get past that this was Tommy Lee Jones playing a caricature of himself. He has been in too many movies where he's this hard boiled veteran whose seen too much of life. It is through his eyes that we see the story unfold. As a central character he plays this role well, but I know him as an actor from The Fugitive to Men In Black and, gosh, couldn't we find anyone else to do this? Sorry, guys. That's how it was for me.

Second, some have criticized the short amount of time Woody Harrelson is onscreen. Yep. He is a more important character in the book. Like William Hurt's brief appearance in Syriana, it was not necessary to have such star power here. O.K., it maybe sells more tickets at the box office? I really liked this character in the book, and Harrelson does play Carson Wells the bounty hunter very well, but I just don't know.

I consider both of these criticisms relatively minor compared to my one major criticism. It simply ended too fast in too confusing of a manner. I think a tight, fast ending is usually great in films so that they do not drag on after the final rush. The problem here is a tight, fast and confusing ending. If I had not read the book, I would not have known what happened. And I am not talking about the scene where Chiguhr is hit by the car. I'm referring to the preceding homicides that end the cat-and-mouse drama.

The reason this is a problem is that, in my opinion, the last emotion one should have after this kind of a thrill ride is that same relief you get when the roller coaster slams back into the station and they unlatch the mechanisms that keep you in the car. Relief. Catch your breath. Instead of a big "wow," I left the theater perplexed and disappointed, with jumbled thoughts. Instead of being in awe at the way they created such a fabulous film, I walked out baffled, dampened by the lack of clarity in the films last scenes. This should not have happened.

I still think it a powerful film and worth seeing if you like this kind of story. It will put you on the edge of your seat.