Bob Dylan

So we're wandering around Lhasa for 5 days surrounded by warm, friendly Tibetans with the biggest warmest smiles we've ever seen anywhere and we're wondering how in the hell are we ever going to befriend any of them considering half the people on the streets are tourists. The answer: The World Basketball Tour, of course!

Here they are, finally, My Picks For The Best 15 Albums and 40 Songs of 2007. I'm not necessarily claiming these are "The Best" albums and songs of the past year since there were thousands of albums and tens of thousands of songs released over the year and I simply haven't heard them all. What I am claiming, however, is that the selections you'll find below are my favorite tunes and discs from the past 12 months - damn good music, all of it. Enjoy! And let me know anything I've missed.

The past couple of years have been an absolute Bobsend for all of us Dylan fans. Not only did we get The Bob's great autobiography, "Chronicles Vol 1", but there was also "Bob Dylan: The Essential Interviews", an excellent collection of sometimes-hilarious and often-bizarre Q&A sessions spanning a 40 year period. Then there was the fantastic Martin Scorsese-directed documentary "No Direction Home" with its terrific double-CD soundtrack. Then last year, in late August, Bob gave us "Modern Times", the third album in his modern trilogy of revitalized greatness. And, finally, for the past year and a half now there's been his fascinating weekly radio show, "The Theme Time Radio Hour". We're talking about a whole bloody Bob Renaissance here people. The guy's as productive, creative and full of talent now as he's been at any other time in his career, save the early to mid-60s.

Bob Dylan on Neil Young:

"Neil is very sincere, if nothing else. He's sincere, and he's got a God-given talent, with that voice of his, and the melodic strain that runs through absolutely everything he does. He could be at his most thrashy, but it's still going to be elevated by some melody. Neil's the only one who does that. There's nobody in his category."

Tell it like it is Bob!

You've heard of the Bermuda Triangle, right? But have you ever heard of the Prairie Triangle of Inspiration? It's not a place where people get lost forever, like in that famous triangle around Bermuda, it's a place that people get the hell out of as soon as possible... though not before becoming incredibly inspired and creative.

You've got to read this fantastic New Yorker Magazine article about Dylan from the end of August entitled "BOB ON BOB". Written by Louis Menand, the article starts off as a review of "Bob Dylan: The Essential Interviews", the book that I read earlier this summer (and sent you all some excerpts from), but it soon becomes much more than simply a book review.

Ok, so about 34 hours ago I wrote you about my great anticipation and excitement concerning the imminent release of Bob Dylan's new CD "Modern Times" and I sent along that 5-out-of-5-stars review/rave from Rolling Stone Magazine. Well, yesterday I picked up the CD while out running around for the day. Unbelievably, it wasn't until later that evening that I got home and finally was able to listen to the bloody thing. I sat down for my first two listens together with a couple of nice cold Pilsner Urquells (the original Pilsner from the city of Pilsen in the Czech Republic). The perfect combination: A brand new Bob CD and a couple of cold beers... and my son, Kaishan, dancing all around the room to the sound of the new music.

You may have seen on the news 2 or 3 nights ago that the Queen was celebrating yet another 80th birthday and the British taxpayers were footing the bill for yet another elaborate celebration. That last one in April, it seems, was simply her "real birthday". This one, it turns out, was her "official birthday". Oh the joyous occasion.

Anyhow, as I was watching this on the news I kept waiting for someone to shout out, like that peasant to King Arthur in "Monty Python and The Holy Grail", "Who elected you anyway?" But, alas, no one ever asked the question.

There's been some talk, maybe a little too much talk. And I've now been led to believe, from the comments of a few friends, that some people think that I actually believe Bob Dylan to be beyond criticism, that is, that he's somehow completely beyond reproach. And that, I've really gotta tell ya, is so far from the truth it's not funny. Yes, it is true that I've often referred to The Bob as a "god", but, what you've got to understand here is that my gods are a lot more like those old Greek and Roman gods than the supposedly-infallible god (God) of the Judeo-Christian tradition.