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The Friendship of Allen Ginsberg and Bob Dylan

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Pilgrim

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Aug 3, 2007, 10:31:51 PM8/3/07
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In marketing terms, no less:

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1542-734X.2006.00418.x

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full text HTML:

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/action/showFullText?submitFullText=Full+Text+HTML&doi=10.1111%2Fj.1542-734X.2006.00418.x

Hopefully that works...

>From the Journal of American Culture, 2006

Incidentally, it has an interesting analysis of the theme of
"friendship" in Don't Look Back.

Pilgrim

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Aug 3, 2007, 10:49:28 PM8/3/07
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On Aug 3, 6:31 pm, Pilgrim <mcisr...@umich.edu> wrote:
> In marketing terms, no less:
>
> http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1542-734X.2006.004...

>
> pdf warning
>
> full text HTML:
>
> http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/action/showFullText?submitFullText=F...

>
> Hopefully that works...
>
> >From the Journal of American Culture, 2006
>
> Incidentally, it has an interesting analysis of the theme of
> "friendship" in Don't Look Back.

I just noticed that there's a little blurb about access to this
article being allowed through the University I work at, so let me know
if you can't get in. I'll copy it then.

daysof48

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Aug 3, 2007, 11:07:57 PM8/3/07
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On Aug 3, 6:49 pm, Pilgrim <mcisr...@umich.edu> wrote:

> I just noticed that there's a little blurb about access to this
> article being allowed through the University I work at, so let me know
> if you can't get in. I'll copy it then.

It would be great if you copy this. I don't have a subscription to
access.


Pilgrim

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Aug 3, 2007, 11:17:02 PM8/3/07
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Marketing Genius: The Friendship of Allen Ginsberg and Bob Dylan
Richard E. Hishmeh11University of California1University of California
Richard E. Hishmeh earned his PhD in English at the University of
California, Riverside. Currently, he is an Assistant Professor of
English at Palomar College in San Marcos, California. He writes
regularly on American literature, culture, and film.

So we're all applauding ourselves is what it comes down to.

-Sam Shepard
When New York Post journalist Al Aronowitz first introduced Allen
Ginsberg to Bob Dylan in New York in 1963, the two became friends
almost immediately. The story goes that Dylan, booked in Chicago the
following evening, invited Ginsberg to come along. Ginsberg politely
declined, and later famously claimed, "I was afraid I might become his
slave or something, a mascot."1 By 1965, the two seemed determined to
make their new friendship a public affair. This impulse is seen in a
number of places in 1965 including the following: the filming of D. A.
Pennebaker's documentary on Bob Dylan, Don't Look Back; Larry Keenan's
photography session outside of City Lights Bookstore; the release of
Dylan's album Bringing it All Back Home; and the first mention of
Dylan in a Ginsberg poem entitled "Beginning of a Poem of these
States." The year 1965 is also when Dylan appeared on Les Crane's TV
talk show and discussed, among other things, future collaboration with
Ginsberg on both film and music projects. Together, these events
comprise the foundation of a public friendship that would be as
carefully constructed and consciously manufactured as any marketing or
publicity strategy in today's corporate entertainment industry.
Perhaps the only difference is that the product up for sale was really
no product at all: it was the image of genius.

As one element in a fully integrated and elaborate marketing strategy,
Ginsberg and Dylan's mutually beneficial public friendship portends to
what is now "business as usual" for multinational corporate
entertainment conglomerates. If critics, scholars, and biographers of
Dylan's music career have overdetermined his importance to the history
of popular music-repeatedly citing his introduction of a folk
sensibility to popular rock and roll, or crediting him with the
subsequent rise of the figure of the singer/songwriter-then what has
remained beyond this critical gaze is how the marketing of Dylan was
also part of a revolutionary development in the popular music
industry. In this context, another event might be added to the long
list above: though far less romantic, the 1965 formation of CBS
Records International seems an equally important development in the
history of popular music.2

By 1965, Ginsberg's most influential work as a poet was arguably
behind him. He had already achieved international recognition for Howl
and had completed his next best collection of poetry, Kaddish and
Other Poems, in 1961. When Ginsberg is discussed today, at least in
literary circles, these are the collections to which we most
frequently return. Still, Ginsberg's reputation does not rest on his
poetic achievements alone. He is also widely regarded as a counter-
culture icon-a bridge between the Beat culture of the 1950s and the
hippie culture of the 1960s-and it is around 1965 when Ginsberg really
begins to make this transformation from strictly a poet to a cultural
icon. Ginsberg's friendship with Dylan provided the catalyst that
facilitated his movement into mainstream recognition from a new
generation of youth culture. His affiliation with Dylan allowed
Ginsberg, with some acumen, to dabble in mediums beyond just poetry,
as in his 1971 recording studio experiments with Dylan.

Whereas Ginsberg had reached his poetic peak by 1965, Dylan had
reached a moment of artistic stagnation. Having taken his folk roots
as far as they could go, Dylan had not yet achieved the musical
celebrity he sought. Frustrated by this stagnation, Dylan, too, was
searching for a way to reinvent his image. His recording of
"Subterranean Homesick Blues," the first song on his 1965 Bringing it
all Back Home album, was one such attempt, and his public friendship
with Ginsberg was another. Dylan was able to use this friendship to
negotiate his transition from folk music hero to the poet-laureate of
rock and roll. His bond with Ginsberg put Dylan's folk purist
dissenters in an awkward bind. While they could easily reject and
disparage his decision to go electric, they would find it much more
difficult to reject a rock icon who held court with poets and, through
such allegiances, became a poet himself.

In marketing terms, Dylan's poetic bond with Ginsberg provided a
psychological counterpoint to the burden faced by those who, though
previously loyal to the Dylan brand, were uncomfortable with the
product's "new look." Dylan's album, Bringing it All Back Home, marks
the first of many "new looks" for Dylan and is an early example of
where his friendship with Ginsberg is publicly displayed. Biographer
Clinton Heylin maintains that Bringing it All Back Home was "the most
influential album of its era," and that "everything to come in
contemporary popular song can be found therein" (181). Howard Sounes,
in his work on Dylan, similarly assigns this significance to the
album:

Bob recorded his songs with rock n' roll backing, demonstrating to
musicians everywhere that they could also express their deepest
feelings in rock n' roll songs. This was a simple but nonetheless
revolutionary idea that emancipated artists ... allowing them to write
pop songs that aspired to the intellectual level of art. (167)

Consistent with most accounts of the album's importance and influence,
these analyses likewise elide any discussion of how the album very
carefully positions itself so as to elicit such reactions in the first
place. Indeed, Bringing it All Back Home is equally intriguing for the
ways in which, at both the lyric and nonlyric level, it works to
assuage resistance from Dylan's folk-purist audience. Prepared for
this group's imminent objection to the album's electrified sound, a
marketing strategy had to be implemented that could maintain as many
of these listeners as possible, while simultaneously reaching out to a
new, broader fan-base.

One way the album achieves this is by building into each of its songs
a theme of consequential change. In the album's first song,
"Subterranean Homesick Blues," for example, Dylan sings, "hard to tell/
if anything is gonna sell/try hard, get barred/get back, write Braille/
get jailed, jump bail/join the army, if you fail" (Lyrics 164); in the
second song, "Maggie's Farm," he sings, "Well, I try my best/to be
just what I am,/But everybody wants you/to be just like them./They
sing while you slave and I just get bored" (166); and in "Outlaw
Blues," Dylan insists, "I wish I was on some/Australian mountain
range./I got no reason to be there, but I/imagine it would be some
kind of change" (168). All of these lyrics advertise Dylan's conscious
awareness of his new image, as well as the potential hostility this
image was bound to evoke. Positioning himself as a banished outsider
whose only crime was staying true to his artistic calling, Dylan fills
the album with a plea for understanding and an explanation for why
change was unavoidable for him.

Perhaps most telling in this regard are these lines from "Bob Dylan's
115th Dream," the last song on the electric side of Bringing it All
Back Home:

"Could you help me out

I got some friends down the way"

The man says, "Get out of here

I'll tear you limb from limb"

I said, "You know they refused Jesus, too"

He said, "You're not Him

Get out of here before I break your bones." (Lyrics 170)

Dylan's transformation from acoustic folk singer to electric rock star
on Bringing it All Back Home was perhaps the most offensive gesture to
his folk-purist dissenters, and lyrics like these, which paint Dylan
as a victim martyred for his generosity to friends, operate as
sympathetic rebuttals to their disapproving scorn.

However, it is the content of the album cover and not the songs
themselves that most clearly articulates how Dylan is consciously
refashioned as a rock poet with Bringing it All Back Home. In his
study of the music business, Music and the Market, Don Cusic observes

Some artists feel their image should be developed inside the album
with lyrics to songs, additional liner notes, additional pictures and
perhaps even credits for songs, musicians, and additional personnel ...
The problem with this internal packaging is that consumers are not
able to see it while browsing the store; for this reason, the cover of
the album takes on added importance. (51)

>From the slightly distorted image of Dylan on the cover, to the
album's exterior liner notes and carefully wrought photographs, the
packaging of Bringing it All Back Home posits an image of Dylan as the
folk-singer-turned-rock poet. No longer the transparently innocent
youth depicted on his first four album covers, Dylan is now rendered a
more complicated, obscured, and artistic version of that former self.
Brought on to help foster this new image was new friend, Allen
Ginsberg.

The back of the album cover is ornamented with six pictures, forming a
narrative that can be read from the largest picture in the top right
corner, through five smaller photos that end near the bottom center of
the album jacket. At the top right is a picture aimed at Dylan's first
(and hitherto), most loyal audience, the folk audience. In this photo,
Dylan is pictured with Joan Baez, who wields the emblematic acoustic
guitar. In the next picture, Dylan is behind two police officers,
gazing aslant into the distance: he is outside and beyond the law,
looking toward the unknown. Immediately below Dylan (aligned with him)
is the smallest of the six photos: a medium close up of Allen
Ginsberg. From the head down, Ginsberg is dressed as the poet: coat,
sweater vest, and tie. On his head, however, sits an outmoded and
playful top hat. In the company of Dylan, Ginsberg's image is
reciprocally revamped, as he now bears the theatrical mark of rock
star regalia. Another small photo depicts Dylan, behind shades,
playing at the electric organ. To the left of these photos is one of
Dylan, head in hand, being comforted (or mangled) by a woman: he is
the poet in crisis, brooding. Finally, the last photo shows Dylan,
among a crowd, now adorned in the identical top hat worn by Ginsberg
two photos prior. The metamorphosis complete, Dylan is crowned poet.3

If only to underscore how Dylan's (self) coronation was a carefully
planned marketing strategy, long before the unanimous cry of an
admiring public, we must turn to the album's exteriorly displayed
liner notes, appearing next to these six photos. In these notes, a
Rimbaudian inspired surrealistic narrative, Dylan endorses as poets
both Ginsberg-"Why Allen Ginsberg was not chosen to read poetry at the
inauguration boggles my mind"-and himself-"I am called a songwriter. A
poem is a naked person ... some people say that I am a poet." As in all
successful advertising campaigns, we are convinced of what to think
and feel before determining it for ourselves. Without hearing a note
of Dylan's album, we are prepared for poetry and prepared to call
Dylan a poet.4

D. A. Pennebaker's 1965 documentary, Don't Look Back,5 similarly
employs the friendship of Ginsberg and Dylan toward marketable ends.
Established at the very outset of the film, the friendship theme
subtly pervades the rest of the film and works to psychologically lure
a hesitant audience toward Dylan's new image. From an industry
standpoint, Don't Look Back is a film that chronicles, even
advertises, Dylan's inevitable trajectory toward a larger audience. As
Robert Burnett contends in his work, The Global Jukebox

In order to maximize one's profit one must achieve the greatest
possible number of consumers. Record companies, musicians and radio
stations are painfully aware of this fact and subsequently often try
to orient their product so as to please as many as possible and thus
maximize profit. (35)

Burnett shows how competition for larger audiences often occurs at the
expense of minority interests and tastes. If Dylan's turn from folk
tunes to "Subterranean Homesick Blues"-from a specialized niche
audience to a mass audience-inevitably meant that some of his fan-base
would be lost, Don't Look Back (despite its title) attests to how
Dylan rallied against this loss in an effort to "please as many as
possible."

Now standard in the music industry, there is little mystery about how
music videos function within the economy of corporate conglomeration.
Cusic observes that while videos are the obvious visual supplement to
the aural format of radio, they have also come to serve an even larger
function within the industry:

[V]ideos are increasingly used in sales meetings, as part of a press
kit, for booking agents, and even for auditions for movie and TV roles
... [they] may be used with in-store promotions, as part of a video
biography, for use internationally, and on television shows (such as
news) when the artist is unavailable. (112)

In an economy dominated by entertainment giants such as Viacom
International, Sony, Time Warner, and Disney (whose common interests
include film, radio, publishing, and much else) capitalizing on a
product across as many of these markets as possible seems an obviously
profitable business strategy. While such potentialities were perhaps
unforeseen by Pennebaker and Dylan's management in 1965, Don't Look
Back nonetheless appears characteristic of an integrated marketing
strategy that would eventually flourish in today's era of media and
entertainment conglomeration.

The now-famous first scene of Don't Look Back is widely regarded as
the first rock video. Pennebaker's film begins when the first notes of
"Subterranean Homesick Blues" are heard. A hand-held camera zooms out
to reveal Bob Dylan offset to the right in the foreground. He is
holding cue cards in his arms; his face is disinterested, even
distracted. Behind Dylan, to the left, with half of his body out of
the shot, is Ginsberg, Tiresias-like, muddling around. As suggested by
the scaffolding, the scene is shot in an alleyway that is under
construction; Ginsberg is near the scaffolding among garbage bags. As
"Subterranean Homesick Blues" rambles on in an incessant, commercial-
like barrage of words and images, Dylan drops cue cards, which are
always almost in sync, revealing words that do not quite correspond
with the song's lyrics. Dylan is not singing the song's words; the
song is dubbed over the scene.

Because no title or credit has yet appeared in the film, this scene
seems almost like a false start. It is outside of the narrative of the
film, and different than anything else within the film's otherwise
"documented" style. Still, it is an essential scene, which subtly
establishes the friendship narrative traceable throughout the rest of
the film. While only certain lyrics make their way onto the cue cards,
when the line "duck down the alleyway looking for a new friend" is
heard, Dylan displays two significant cards: "alleyway" and "new
friend." These cards work as an announcement of Dylan's new
allegiances and suggest that Dylan's identity, like the alleyway, is
under construction. No longer wielding the folk artist's acoustic
guitar (as he does throughout the rest of the film), he is introduced
here in the company of poets, playfully manipulating words as would a
poet.6

The only other mention of "Subterranean Homesick Blues" in the film
occurs when a fan tells Dylan that she does not want to hear
"Subterranean," but would prefer, ironically, to hear "The Times they
are A-Changin." Pressing the girl on why she does not like the song,
Dylan's response to this fan's objection is telling and, again, evokes
the film's friendship theme. "My friends are playing with me," Dylan
says. "You know, I have to give some work to my friends."7 Though
smiling as if joking, Dylan makes a remark that is, in fact,
foreboding: he has already introduced a riotous band of friends on
"Subterranean Homesick Blues" and (apparently unbeknownst to this
already leery fan) employs the same electric crew throughout the
entire A-side of Bringing it All Back Home. As such, Dylan's seemingly
dismissible comment, and the film more generally, work as a warning
and an advertisement for where Dylan's musical career is headed.
Carefully crafted, despite being shot within the conventions of cinema
verité, this scene allows Dylan to directly confront his hesitant fans
with their own foolishness. That is, by not embracing Dylan's new
style of play, these fans are made by Dylan himself to look both
hypocritical and selfish. Their naïve simplicity is juxtaposed with an
image of Dylan as a genuine and unselfish creative genius, one who
gives generously to his friends by letting them partake in his
success. This tactic is eerily similar to that of high-pressure sales:
assaulted by their own shortcomings and lack, Dylan's hesitant fans
have no choice but to convert.

The film's friendship theme finds its apotheosis in an infamous scene
with the Scottish folksinger, Donovan, at the Savoy Hotel. This scene
begins amidst a conflict created by someone throwing a glass out of a
window that lands on a limousine. Dylan is angrily trying to find the
culprit and, at one point during his rage, declares that he has enough
responsibility with his own friends and his own people. When the
camera cuts away from this argument, Dylan is seen calmly talking to
Derrol Adams, a friend of Donovan's. As the conversation turns to
poetry, Dylan asks, "Do you got any poets like Allen Ginsberg around
here, man?" This is the only other mention of Ginsberg in the film,
but it significantly closes the frame established in the opening
scene. The reply to Dylan's question is "no," but they do have Dominic
Behan. Dylan makes it clear that he "doesn't want anyone like Dominic
Behan," to which a voice off camera insists, "Dominic Behan is a
friend of mine." Dylan reiterates, "That's fine man. I just don't want
to hear anyone like that though."8

Almost as a double endorsement, Dylan uses Ginsberg to assert his own
position as one who knows about poetry. The exchange between Dylan and
the voice, significantly from off camera, demonstrates that whereas
Dylan's friends are poets worth knowing, the poet friends of the
anonymous voice are themselves (like the voice) not worthy of being
mentioned, seen, or discussed. This again illustrates how Ginsberg and
Dylan's public friendship worked to their mutual benefit. Dylan could
establish himself as a creative genius, a musician who knows poetry,
while promoting Ginsberg in a mass-cultural format as a poet worth
knowing. Distributed and showcased as it was to youth audiences across
the country (initially played primarily on college and university
campuses), Don't Look Back was another ingredient in an elaborately
crafted marketing campaign that facilitated Dylan's waxing image as an
electric rock star cum poet-genius.9 Still, for a fully integrated
marketing and publicity strategy, the public display of Ginsberg and
Dylan's friendship needed to extend to mediums beyond just records and
films.

Burnett argues that in today's global market, "records are designed as
cross-media products which can be advertised and promoted in a
systematic way. Tie-ins between books, films, and records are liked
because the success of one product contributes to the appeal of the
others" (82). As a print medium, Sam Shepard's Rolling Thunder Logbook
harmoniously "tied-in" with the friendship jingle Dylan and company
had long been humming. Like Dylan's album and Pennebaker's film almost
a decade before, Shepard's book demonstrates how the carefully plotted
public friendship of Ginsberg and Dylan mutually benefited both the
poet and the singer. While pitched as the superfluous overflow of
journalistic observations, Shepard's work is also part and parcel of
an integrated marketing plan that sought to capitalize on the image of
Dylan-as-creative-genius-an image substantially perpetuated through
his friendship with Ginsberg.

Shepard was one of the seventy or so members assembled for the Rolling
Thunder Review-a 1975-1976 tour of the Eastern seaboard that began
with a show in Plymouth, Massachusetts. His role was to chronicle the
event in a literary fashion, a task he found exceedingly difficult
given the tour's chaotic, circus-like atmosphere. As he tells in his
introduction, his default was to present the tour in an episodic,
fractured manner to "give the reader a taste of the whole
experience" (Shepard 1). Among the seventy other people brought along
for the tour were singers and musicians including Joan Baez, Joni
Mitchell, Roger McGuinn, Mick Ronson; a film crew meant to document
the tour; and poets, Peter Orlovosky and Allen Ginsberg. As in Don't
Look Back, Ginsberg's participation in the tour was minimal, but the
impact of his limited presence proved substantial to both Dylan and
him. For Dylan, Ginsberg's presence enhanced his literary reputation,
while for Ginsberg the tour offered access to a large popular audience
that he was not likely to attract on his own.

Comparable to the opening scene in Don't Look Back, where Ginsberg is
framed just out of the shot with Dylan in the foreground, Shepard
introduces Ginsberg into the tour's chronicles as follows: "The place
is exploding with crazies. Outside, Ginsberg is yelling from the
pavement, one story below, that he's ready for us to film him reading
one of his poems. No one seems to hear" (16). In part, this passage is
an interesting testament revealing Ginsberg's own desires for fame and
the attentions of the camera. More importantly, though, it reiterates
how the friendship of Ginsberg and Dylan, despite (and in fact
partially as a result of) its subtle public display, contributed to
the myth of genius surrounding both of these figures. Regardless of
how close or intimate their friendship actually was, their reputations
as individual geniuses depended upon a carefully crafted public
distance. In this way, their creative worlds could cross-pollinate at
a distance safe enough to ensure that their individuality was
maintained. The Rolling Thunder Revue, as well as Shepard's recreation
of it, attest to how this was accomplished.

When Shepard pauses midway through his chronicles to ponder the impact
of the Rolling Thunder Revue on the cultural landscape of America, he
arrives at something profound. Though the profundity of his revelation
is not, I think, entirely what he intended it to be, it nevertheless
speaks to the ways in which Ginsberg and Dylan mutually benefited from
their public friendship. Shepard asks, "Where does Rolling Thunder
fall in all this? It's too simple to write it off as just another good-
time tour revolving around the mysterious presence of Dylan" (116).
Continuing, he suggests that the tour has become an expedition, equal
to Gregory Corso's notion of poetry as a "magic probe." Shepard
questions, "Ginsberg's not just along for the ride after going through
America backward and forward for over forty years ... And Dylan hasn't
exactly been in a coma all these years. So what's the story?"
Answering his own question Shepard remarks, "Beyond the impact of
everybody's individual charisma and personality, something is
lurking" (116). Most important of all is Shepard's conclusion to this
passage: "At the same time Dylan is helping people, he's being helped.
This camaraderie is growing" (116).

Shepard suggests that "lurking here" is a "magic" and "poetic"
potential brought on by the convergence of these figures of genius for
the Rolling Thunder Revue. He intimates that through their mutual
experiences, these figures are exploring new, creative possibilities
and potentials. The language of this passage could not be more
Romantic; but even if Shepard misdirects the profundity of this
passage toward Romantic ends, the passage retains a crucial insight.
When Shepard writes that "Ginsberg's not just along for the ride," and
concludes that Dylan is helping people by being helped, he alludes to
more than the mere fact that each is helping the other become
creative; he shows that the tour, like his own documentation of it,
successfully helps create the illusion of this magic potential. In
other words, Ginsberg and Dylan do not become more or less creative as
individuals as a result of this tour, but by appearing together on
tour they create the illusion of this possibility. This illusion works
to benefit Ginsberg and Dylan by broadening their respective audiences
as well as their reputations as individual geniuses.

The most notable image of Ginsberg and Dylan in Shepard's work that
consciously fosters this illusion is the image of the two friends at
the grave of Jack Kerouac. At nine pages, this section constitutes the
longest sustained episode in Shepard's work. It includes two pages of
poems, a single poem on each page, and four large photographs.
Consistent with the rest of his work, Shepard begins this episode of
Dylan-as-poet with Ginsberg.10 He writes, "Allen's in front, in the
nondriver position" (90). Intended literally to describe Ginsberg's
position in the vehicle headed to Lowell, Massachusetts, this opening
line delineates how Ginsberg's presence within Dylan's mythic world is
to be understood: it is significant though unobtrusive. Shepard
continues, noting that on that particular day a red Galaxy driven by a
reporter for Rolling Stone magazine followed Dylan's car. Although
made in passing, this remark importantly signals that the day's
activities in Lowell, Massachusetts were premeditated, unspontaneous,
and destined for public display.

Yet, Shepard's descriptions and photos of Ginsberg and Dylan at the
gravesite of Kerouac in this section seemingly elide the twin
narratives of premeditation and publicity. The event appears so
spontaneous, so natural and authentic, that any accusation suggesting
artifice would fall on deaf ears. Kerouac's grave becomes a magic
space where poems are written and songs are sung. At one point,
Shepard notes, "I try to look at both of them [Ginsberg and Dylan]
head-on, with no special ideas of who or what they are but just try to
see them there in front of me ... Alive and singing to the dead and
living" (95). He concludes the episode four pages later writing,
"Allen and Dylan singing on his grave. Allen, full of life, hope, and
resurrection. Poets of this now life" (99). Despite the Rolling Stone
reporter, the photographs, and the film crew, Shepard suggests that at
the gravesite of Kerouac, three poets, one dead and two living,
communed. Far more than a publicity ploy, Shepard tells, the event was
transcendent. Three like souls-those of Romantic genius-had reunited
and the effects were magical. Like the event itself, Shepard's
rendition of it constitutes a version of Ginsberg and Dylan's
friendship that is embedded with specific, public, and premeditated
aims. Again, however, as in all good marketing, intentionality
dissolves into the effortless aura of authenticity.

If Shepard undoubtedly forwards an image of Ginsberg and Dylan as
Romantic Geniuses, he also appears astutely aware of the artifice of
such images. Commenting on watching Dylan perform, Shepard writes,

He says he's "just a musician," and in his boots he needs that kind of
protection from intellectual probes, which are a constant threat to
any artist. Even so, the repercussions of his art don't have to be
answered by him at all ... Myth is a powerful medium because it talks to
the emotions and not the head. It moves us into an area of mystery.
Some myths are poisonous to believe in, but others have the capacity
for changing something inside us, even if it's only for a minute or
two. Dylan creates a mythic atmosphere out of the land around us. (62)

Several pages later Shepard writes,

It doesn't matter if the information on our heroes is completely made
up; we still want to believe it. Even with the advent of
"demystification," we get stoned out on the gyrations of a few
individuals. Somebody "out there" is actually doing what cries out to
be done. Something somehow that we know is in us, but it's not us
doing it. It's a hero. It's not a hero ... We feel the same act in us
but it's dormant ... So we're all applauding ourselves is what it comes
down to. (76)

The first passage indirectly reiterates one of Ginsberg's primary
functions on the tour: that is, he subtly counters Dylan's humble
refrain that he is "just a musician." In effect, Ginsberg's presence
legitimizes Dylan's reputation as a serious artist, while
simultaneously exposing Ginsberg, himself, to a mass cultural audience.
11 More importantly, though, these passages constitute perhaps the
richest moments in Shepard's work, and come closest to answering an
important question about contemporary marketing trends and culture
more generally: Why, in an era that has clearly done away with notions
of Romantic genius, an era of "demystification" as Shepard calls it,
do such representations continue to flourish? Shepard suggests, and I
would agree, that these representations speak to our desires for such
figures even if we know they cannot, or do not, exist. They conform to
our beliefs about progress and the possibility of achieving the
impossible. As Cusic observes, such representations succeed as
marketing campaigns because they appeal to our "need to feel as
individuals and the need to feel part of a group" (19).

In fact, the public alliance between Ginsberg and Dylan-two icons of
genius-is such a thoroughly integrated marketing strategy that it
embeds, and is inevitably derived from, a fully commodified artistic
ethos of the 1960s that finds its clearest articulation in Andy
Warhol's musings on Popism. Allied with this spirit that consciously
resisted and reshaped the boundaries between "high" and "low" art, and
counter and mainstream culture, the public friendship of Ginsberg and
Dylan took on yet another marketable quality: that of an edgy
contemporaneousness. By 1963, the year that Ginsberg and Dylan first
met in New York, Warhol had already established himself as a
preeminent figure in the art world, particularly by bringing a pop
sensibility to the "high" art world of painting. His infamous
"Factory" was up and running in New York, and by 1964, the newly
famous painter was ready to turn his attention to other mediums,
particularly film and music.

In his memoirs of the 1960s, Warhol writes that despite the
observations of his friend David Bourbon, his forays into these other
mediums were neither deliberate nor planned. Warhol explains,

there wasn't any master plan, it was just the way things were turning
out. But his [David's] theory was interesting: that the more
departments of a newspaper or magazine that might have a reason to do
a story on you, the better chance you had of getting publicity; that
you had to spread yourself very thin and that then maybe some of the
things you did would catch on. I would have felt like a public
relations genius if I'd thought all that out in advance. (Hackett and
Warhol 134)

Warhol continues, claiming,

As near as I could figure, why it was all happening was because we
were really interested in everything that was going on. The pop idea,
after all, was that anybody could do anything, so naturally we were
trying to do it all. Nobody wanted to stay in one category; we all
wanted to branch out into every creative thing we could-that's why
when we met the Velvet Underground12 at the end of '65, we were all
for getting into the music scene, too. (134)

Typical of Warhol, the tone of these passages is diffident,
nonchalant, and decidedly anti-intellectual, but this does little more
than vaguely mask the shrewd insights of his observations. For Warhol,
who began his career in advertising and obsessed over fame, it is hard
to imagine that Bourbon's observations were only revelatory in
retrospect. What these passages show instead, and in spite of Warhol's
humble pose, is a keen awareness of the link between marketing oneself
as a creative genius and diversifying the creative mediums in which
one participates. It is precisely this awareness, exploited throughout
the 1960s by Warhol and his disciples, that helps create the artistic
spirit of the 1960s, one that Ginsberg and Dylan capitalize on through
their public friendship.

The parallel between Popism and the public friendship of Ginsberg and
Dylan is evidenced by the presence of both Ginsberg and Dylan in the
Warhol scene of the 1960s. The two were among the masses of
celebrities, artists, and musicians who frequented Warhol's parties
and "Factory" throughout the 1960s. Warhol recalls meeting Dylan for
the first time at a party in 1965:

He [Dylan] was around twenty-four then and the kids were all just
starting to talk and act and dress and swagger like he did. But not
many people except Dylan could ever pull that anti-act off-and if he
wasn't in the right mood, he couldn't either. He was already slightly
flashy when I met him, definitely not folksy anymore-I mean he was
wearing satin polka-dot shirts. He'd released Bringing It All Back
Home, so he'd already started his rock sound at this point ... I liked
Dylan, the way he created a brilliant new style. He didn't spend his
career doing homage to the past. (108)

Warhol's observation is again exceedingly useful, particularly so for
pinpointing both the artifice and mutability of Dylan's public
persona. Commenting that not even Dylan could consistently pull off
the "anti-act," Warhol affirms that such qualities are not the innate
signs of genius surfacing on the individual; rather, they are
artificial signifiers of genius displayed for the public, signifiers
as vacant as satin polka-dot shirts. Warhol's comment also points to
how Dylan's counter-culture persona, as early as 1965, was already
moving into the mainstream. Dylan's participation in Warhol's infamous
screen tests, his relationship with vogue-model-muse-turned-tragic-
socialite, Edie Sedgwick, and his presence at a number of Warhol's
parties throughout the 1960s13 all attest to how thoroughly entrenched
Dylan was in Warhol's Pop ethos.

Ginsberg, too, frequented Warhol events throughout the 1960s. Most
notably, perhaps, was Ginsberg's attendance at Warhol's 1965 Factory
party for "The Fifty Most Beautiful People." At this party, Warhol
recounts that movie producer Lester Persky upset Judy Garland by
telling her that Tennessee Williams had said she could not act.
Distressed all evening, Garland eventually confronted Williams, who
was standing with Ginsberg and William Burroughs. Pointing at Persky,
Garland declared to Williams, "He said that you said I can't
act" (103). In addition to the hilarity evoked by the pettiness of
this happening, this event is also a perfect anecdote for how the
1960s exploded notions of "high" and "low" art. Like all of Warhol's
parties, this one brought together attendants as diverse as Ginsberg,
Burroughs, and Judy Garland. In the most literal way conceivable, the
worlds of celebrity, stardom, and glamor were bumping elbows and
mingling with the worlds of literature, painting, and music. The
offspring of such encounters were celebrity poet-musicians like
Ginsberg, and rock star-poets like Dylan.

Several decades later, Ginsberg and Dylan carried the logic of Popism
to its inevitable end by appearing in commercial advertisements for
major clothing companies. Before his death in 1997, Allen Ginsberg
appeared in a 1993 advertising campaign for the Gap. With glasses and
beard, Ginsberg sits cross-legged with his arms in his lap, Buddha-
like. He is wearing Gap khakis, and the ad simply reads, repeatedly,
"Allen Ginsberg wore khakis." Independent scholar Michael Rich
observes, "the choice of Allen Ginsberg as one of the legends
'visualized wearing khakis' by Maggie Gross, then Gap's executive vice
president of advertising, and her staff is representative of the
general 'beat revival' which was happening across America at the
time" (Rich). He lists as part of this revival David Cronenberg's film
Naked Lunch, the Rhino Records release of The Beat Generation Box Set,
Kurt Cobain's musical collaboration with William S. Burroughs on the
album The Priest They Called Him, and the naming of two streets in San
Francisco's North Beach section as Kerouac Street and Via
Ferlinghetti.

Rich's analysis uncovers an even larger phenomenon in American culture
than he allows. What he labels a "beat revival" in American culture is
symptomatic of a more constant fascination with figures of genius that
pervades the American popular imagination. What Maggie Gross of the
Gap capitalized on by using Ginsberg in a Gap ad was the same image of
genius that Ginsberg had fostered throughout his career. Her
realization was that if the figure of genius can sell poems and
records, it could also sell khakis. Following such logic, Dylan, like
his friend before him, cooperated with Victoria Secret executives, and
offered his carefully fostered reputation of genius to an ad campaign
for women's underwear. In a commercial that ran on major networks for
only two weeks, Dylan, adorned in black western attire c. 1950, glides
through a chandeliered mansion following (or being followed by) a
Victoria's Secret model adorned as an angel. Dylan's song "Lovesick,"
from the Grammy-winning 1997 album, Time Out of Mind, plays over the
scene.

Dressed as he is in this commercial, Dylan is readily identified with
the figure of the outlaw, a figure not at all inconsistent with that
of the Romantic genius.14 Dylan, himself, in his recently released
Chronicles Volume I, concedes the slippage between his various
personas, remarking that he had variously been anointed as "the Big
Bubba of Rebellion, High Priest of Protest, the Czar of Dissent, the
Duke of Disobedience, Leader of the Freeloaders, Kaiser of Apostasy,
Archbishop of Anarchy, the Big Cheese ... All code words for
outlaw" (Chronicles 120). A page or so later, he continues the
catalog: "Legend, Icon, Enigma." He then suggests that these were
hardly as difficult to live up to as "Prophet, Messiah, Savior-those
are tough ones" (124). Whichever tag we choose to assign to Dylan, it
is precisely this package of figures that Dylan brings to the
Victoria's Secret advertisement. Lest one question whether or not
Dylan sought deliberately to capitalize on his own image by appearing
in these commercials, recall that for the two weeks that the
advertisement ran, customers who made purchases at Victoria's Secret
were entitled to a free compilation of Bob Dylan songs made especially
for the store's promotion. Here, then, the borders between high and
low art, and counter and mass culture, are completely ruptured: Songs
regarded as poetry and sung by the voice of a generation-a prophet and
counterculture rebel-distributed for consumption and accompanied by
women's undergarments.

In an essay on Bob Dylan as hero, critic Darryl Hattenhauer writes
that Dylan's repeated reinventions of himself contributed to a
reputation of a hero with many faces (73). Similarly, the Victoria's
Secret advertisement is simply another of these reinventions that
works to reassert Dylan's heroism. Adorned in the commercial as the
outlaw, Dylan boldly faces and belies the threat that this action be
read a "selling out." As the outlaw, he is doing what should not be
done, an act which should be read as in, rather than out, of character
for Dylan. While many of Dylan's contemporaries, including The Rolling
Stones, The Who, Led Zeppelin, and The Clash, offered up their songs
to commercial advertisements before Dylan, it remains difficult to
simply see Dylan as yet another "sell out." If "selling out" denotes
an action inconsistent with one's previous ethics, then Dylan, the
perennial chameleon, can hardly be regarded as such. Indeed, for the
habitual recluse, the final act of heroism might be to step fully into
the limelight. To mixed reviews, this is precisely what Dylan has been
doing for the last several years.15

On one hand, and especially in light of these recent developments in
Dylan's career, it is easy to see how his friendship with Ginsberg can
be likened to a merger between a major publishing house and major
record label. Perhaps, though, we can also naïvely maintain that it is
rooted in the magic and poetic potential, posited by Shepard, of two
friends genuinely brought together as a consequence of shared genius.
If we can believe the latter, however little, perhaps we can also
believe that genius and the individual somehow survive and function in
the age of global corporate conglomeration.

Notes Go to sectionTop of pageNotesWorks Cited
My thanks to Steven G. Axelrod, Jeremy Kaye, and Jason Spangler who
have contributed generously to my writing of this article.

1. The account of this meeting, along with this quote, appears in
several major biographies of both figures, including: Clinton
Heylin's, Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisited; Howard Sounes's,
Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan; and Barry Miles's, Allen
Ginsberg: A Biography.

2. CBS is the umbrella under which Bob Dylan's label, Columbia
Records, is housed. Sony bought CBS/Columbia in 1988, but as Robert
Burnett points out in The Global Jukebox, the 1965 formation of CBS
International had already made the company a major international
business (Burnett 51).

3. It is interesting to note that when the album art was reformatted
for its initial reissue on CD, only four of these six photos were
retained, three of which (along with the liner notes) were moved
inside the CD jacket. Nearly twenty years after the album's original
release, the importance of these photos and notes as essential
ingredients for marketing Dylan had diminished with Dylan's reputation
as an artist and icon firmly established. Here, another industry
concern seems to have taken precedent: production costs related to
elaborate CD packaging.

4. We might measure the success of this strategy by the overwhelming
success of Bringing it All Back Home. As Howard Sounes reports, it was
the most successful of Dylan's first five albums, reaching #6 in the
US charts, and #1 in the British charts (170).

5. An important chronological note is that whereas the release date
usually associated with Pennebaker's film is 1967, the film was shot
during Dylan's 1965 British tour.

6. A similar moment of the poet at play with words is seen in Martin
Scorsese's latest documentary on Dylan, No Direction Home. In one
scene, Dylan stands outside of a café window, orally reorganizing the
words on the window into poetic phrases to the delight of his
entourage.

7. This mimics Dylan's earlier gesture in the song, "Bob Dylan's 115th
Dream." Here, again, Dylan positions himself as one who is looking out
for his friends and being condemned for it.

8. Behan is an Irish folk poet and songwriter. He was born in Dublin,
lived in England, and died in Glasgow in 1989. The larger implication
here seems to be that while Donovan is simply a British folk singer,
Dylan, through his new friendship with Ginsberg, is moving on to
bigger things. Ironically, Dylan had earlier used Behan's song "The
Patriot Game" as a template for "With God on Our Side." His rejection
of Behan in this scene points to his rejection of his folk identity
more generally.

9. Cusic and others observe that the youth market is still paramount
in popular music marketing. For Cusic, this demographic is primarily
between the ages of thirteen to twenty-five years old. As he writes,
"In marketing products to the youth culture, the entertainment
industry often caters to [a] theme of rebellion ... This entertainment
industry is usually willing to gamble on offering unique products, and
campaigns that shock ... This all begins by targeting the youthful
consumer who wants to rebel against the status quo through music and
other forms of entertainment" (19-20). Such analysis underscores how
Don't Look Back effectively capitalizes on Dylan's image as a
rebellious folk singer, and does much to justify Dylan's caustic and
aggressive attitude toward journalists and fans, alike, throughout the
film.

10. Indeed, it proves almost impossible for Shepard to talk about
Dylan as poet without first beginning with Ginsberg. For another
example of this see Shepard (52). Entitled "Talk of Poets," this
section begins: "Lots of talk of poets around. 'Improvisers' in the
word of Ginsberg." The section continues to discuss the ways in which
Dylan is a poet, noting disinterestedly that Ginsberg was the first to
"start [that] riff in the papers" about Dylan bringing poetry to the
jukebox. Such passages clarify again how the public representations of
Ginsberg and Dylan as friends serve marketable ends.

11. I would argue that the fact that Ginsberg publicly plays the
perennial sycophant to Dylan is part of the careful regulation of
their public friendship, and is equally advantageous to both parties.
The benefit to Dylan is obvious; for Ginsberg, it is less so. I
suggest that Ginsberg's public "worship" of Dylan serves to align
Ginsberg with a mass audience by making Ginsberg like the audience.
That is, the generational and cultural disparities between Ginsberg-
the aging, poet-spokesman of the 1950s-and the youth culture of the
1960s and 1970s, and beyond, are bridged by their mutual
identification in Bob Dylan.

12. Warhol's banana-peel artwork for the cover of The Velvet
Underground's 1965 debut album is perhaps the quintessential example
of how the worlds of "high" and "low" art were rapidly merging in the
1960s.

13. For a more thorough account of these connections, see Popism: The
Warhol Sixties by Warhol and Hackett, or Down the Highway: The Life of
Bob Dylan by Howard Sounes.

14. See Raymond Williams, Culture and Society, wherein Williams
suggests that the Romantic artist was viewed as one who was opposed to
society and who, despite the hostility of his environment, was able to
achieve personal expression through innate creativity (48-64).

15. As I write this article, a stage musical based on Dylan's
songbook, entitled The Times The Are A-Changin, directed and
choreographed by Twyla Thorpe, is set to premiere. This is another
instance of Dylan's ever-constant move into the mainstream.

Works Cited Go to sectionTop of pageNotesWorks Cited
·Burnett, Robert. The Global Jukebox: The International Music
Industry. New York: Routledge, 1996.
·Cusic, Don. Music and the Market. Bowling Green: Bowling Green State
UP, 1996.
·Don't Look Back. Dir. D. A. Pennebaker. Ashes and Sand, 1967.
·Dylan, Bob. Bringing it all Back Home. Prod. Tom Wilson. Columbia
Records, 1965.
·Dylan, Bob. Time Out of Mind. Prod. Daniel Lanois. Columbia Records,
1997.
·Dylan, Bob. Chronicles. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004a.
·Dylan, Bob. Lyrics: 1961-2001. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004b.
·Ginsberg, Allen. Howl and Other Poems. The Pocket Poets Series. 4.
San Francisco: City Lights, 1959.
·Ginsberg, Allen. Kaddish and Other Poems. 1958-1960. The Pocket
Series. 14. San Francisco: City Lights, 1960.
·Ginsberg, Allen. Collected Poems: 1947-1980. New York: Harper & Row,
1984.
·Hackett, Pat, and Andy Warhol. Popism: The Warhol Sixties. New York:
Harcourt, 1980.
·Hattenhauer, Darryl. "Bob Dylan as Hero: Rhetoric, History,
Structuralism, and Psychoanalysis in Folklore as a Communicative
Process." Southern Folklore Quarterly 45 (1981): 69-88.
·Heylin, Clinton. Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisited. New York:
Harper Collins, 2001.
·Masked and Anonymous. Dir. Larry Charles. Perf. Jeff Bridges,
Penelope Cruz, Bob Dylan, John Goodman. 2003. DVD. Sony Picture
Classics, 2003.
·Miles, Barry. Allen Ginsberg: A Biography. London: Virgin Books,
2002.
·No Direction Home. Dir. Martin Scorsese. Paramount, 2005.
·Rich, Michael. "Gross Translation." Genericana. 11 Nov. 2004 http//
www.genericana.com/writings/gross.htm.
·Shepard, Sam. Rolling Thunder Logbook. New York: Viking Press, 1977.
·Sounes, Howard. Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan. New York:
Grove Press, 2001.
·Williams, Raymond. Culture and Society 1780-1950. New York: Columbia
UP, 1983.
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daysof48

unread,
Aug 4, 2007, 5:01:14 AM8/4/07
to
On Aug 3, 7:17 pm, Pilgrim <mcisr...@umich.edu> wrote:
>
> Marketing Genius: The Friendship of Allen Ginsberg and Bob Dylan
> Richard E. Hishmeh11University of California1University of California
> Richard E. Hishmeh earned his PhD in English at the University of
> California, Riverside. Currently, he is an Assistant Professor of
> English at Palomar College in San Marcos, California. He writes
> regularly on American literature, culture, and film.

Excellent piece of writing. So glad you took the time to copy it here.
The mingling of public, private, business, personal is illustrated in
much detail. What we see is a symbiotic relationship of genius feeding
(and feeding on) genius that glorifies both Dylan and Ginsberg. The
men taken together become more than the sum of their parts. It's as
though 1 + 1 = 37.

frinjdwelr

unread,
Aug 4, 2007, 5:21:26 AM8/4/07
to

"Just Walkin'" <kens...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:1186185689.7...@z24g2000prh.googlegroups.com...
>Too much ado about nothing. By the time Bob started reading scripture,
the differences that life wrought between them became so great that
public friendship wasn't such a great idea anymore.

In the first place, Bob always "read scripture," and he and Allen had
religious/philosophical differences and debates right from the start.


>Unlike Warhol,
whose ethos Dylan seemed to reject out of hand, getting only a few
songs and a sofa in trade for some so-called art out of the
encounter, Bob did like Allen and included him in his entourage and
his Rolling Thunder Revue for several years. But by the end of the
seventies, joint sightings were a thing of the past.

Not true. They still hung out together in the 90s, in fact up til Allen's
death.
Allen very publicly was around during Bob's 89/90 Beacon Theater runs, even
signing autographs in the lobby. In 93, though looking ill, we all saw him
heading backstage at the Sarasota, NY show. In 94 he sat with GE in a very
public box seat at the Roseland ballroom show. In the mid 90s Allen was
experimenting with photography and spent time with Bob at his home taking
pictures and this was written about in the press.

>Coming around the
final decade of the millenium, Bob'd rather be hanging out with Willie
and Merle and folks that had a line on what 98% of what the public is
all about than the poets and beatniks and headcases that scare them
away. Indeed he is a marketing genius. But more than that, he has a
very strong mind that is continually developing, leaving behind
regularly those that cannot or do not grow.

The problem with both this remark and the article posted is the assumption
that these friendships were based on mercenary marketing goals. With the
exception of Merle, who to hear him talk could hardly be considered Bob's
"friend," and who most certainly was not at any kind of peak in popularity
helpful to Bob when they hooked up, all these guys are completely consistent
with Bob's style and musical tastes since the 1950s.
Bob(or his advisers) may be a marketing genius, but that's not why he
connected with these guys.
What I don't understand is are you really claiming that 98% of the public
are into Willie and Merle? And who exactly "cannot grow?"


Just Walkin'

unread,
Aug 4, 2007, 1:50:15 PM8/4/07
to
frinjdwelr wrote:
> In the first place, Bob always "read scripture," and he and Allen had
> religious/philosophical differences and debates right from the start.
>
Thank you for your corrections.You are absolutely right about this and
other points I made. That is why I withdrew the post.

>
> Not true. They still hung out together in the 90s, in fact up til Allen's
> death.
> Allen very publicly was around during Bob's 89/90 Beacon Theater runs, even
> signing autographs in the lobby. In 93, though looking ill, we all saw him
> heading backstage at the Sarasota, NY show. In 94 he sat with GE in a very
> public box seat at the Roseland ballroom show. In the mid 90s Allen was
> experimenting with photography and spent time with Bob at his home taking
> pictures and this was written about in the press.
>
Thank you; I did not know this. Allen was very smart and I am sure
that he and Bob had many stimulating discussions.

>
> The problem with both this remark and the article posted is the assumption
> that these friendships were based on mercenary marketing goals. With the
> exception of Merle, who to hear him talk could hardly be considered Bob's
> "friend," and who most certainly was not at any kind of peak in popularity
> helpful to Bob when they hooked up, all these guys are completely consistent
> with Bob's style and musical tastes since the 1950s.
> Bob(or his advisers) may be a marketing genius, but that's not why he
> connected with these guys.
>
Bob is a very clever man. In his early years, before he had handlers,
he was able to leapfrog ahead of the pack in part because of his
extraordinary political skills. I do not think of him as mercenary,
but he is a genius.

>
> What I don't understand is are you really claiming that 98% of the public
> are into Willie and Merle? And who exactly "cannot grow?"
>
Overstated on my part. The personalities are but metaphors for the
market and the number is very much arguable. But it is clear to me
that he does not cast his lot along the fringes but rather aims at the
thoughtful listener, capable of learning how to live from his songs as
he did from Woody's.

M. Rick

unread,
Aug 4, 2007, 8:15:57 PM8/4/07
to
Dylan didn't need Ginsberg for any poetic credibility, and vice-versa.
There was no Dylan-Ginsberg marketing machine. You could write the history
of their careers without mentioning the other.


TheUnknownPoster

unread,
Aug 4, 2007, 11:54:55 PM8/4/07
to
On Aug 3, 6:31 pm, Pilgrim <mcisr...@umich.edu> wrote:
> In marketing terms, no less:
>

Dear Pilgrim,

Thanks for the timely & thoughtProvoking post. It certainly elevates
the level of discourse, which i didn't really consider to be at ebb
tide. We're getting along quite nicely, thanks to all the good people
in the congregation.

]Preacher_dudley takes up the collection[

I'm presently reading Bill Morgan's "I Celebrate Myself (The Somewhat
Private Life of Allen Ginsberg)". Bill had spent time organising
Allen's papers, & the book is drawn from the knowledge he acquired in
performing that function.

I've skipped ahead to the Index (i usually wouldn't). Here are the
last two entries that tell of direct meetings between Bob & Allen.

>From 1985

}
In late March, Dylan made a rare visit to Allen in the middle of the
night. They discussed possible titles for Dylan's next album, and
Allen showed him some of the photographs he'd been taking, including
photos of Harry Smith and nude pictures of a handsome young man,
Patrick Warner. Dylan was curious to know if Patrick was Allen's new
boyfriend, but Allen sadly answered, "No, just a friend". Dylan was
impressed with Allen's talent as a photographer and was anxious to
meet Harry Smith, who had put together the influential "Anthology of
American Folk Music" for Folkways in 1952, a seminal project that had
sparked Dylan's initial interest in folk music. Since Harry was in the
next room, Allen asked him to come out and meet Dylan, but an
unimpressed Smith slammed the door in his face.
{

>From 1992

{
In mid-February... Bob Dylan called to ask Allen to take his picture.
He had seen the portraits in Allen's Twelvetrees book and was
impressed with their quality. Flattered, Allen picked up his
Rolleiflex camera and the two went to Tompkins Square Park for some
outdoor shots, but as soon as he began taking Dylan's picture some of
the park derelicts spotted them. The bums assumed that Allen was
surreptitiously taking their photos and began pelting them with
bottles. They had no idea who Dylan and Ginsberg were and chased them
out of the park. In the quieter East River Park Allen was able to
finish the photo shoot. "Fame is a curse, without redeeming value,"
Dylan told Allen. In some ways Allen had the best of both worlds.
Although many people recognized him and knew who he was, he could also
be anonymous and blend into the streetscape. Dylan, on the other hand,
needed guards for his home and couldn't go anywhere in public alone.
Even though Allen was aware that the price of fame was a forfeit of
privacy, he would have traded places with Dylan in an instant.
{

As to the subthread hear about "marketing", the genius might not have
been Bob's. In Allen's early post-Columbian youth, when he was still
toying with conformity & heterosexuality or at least paying the rent &
getting off, his best paying jobs were in marketing where he compiled
and analysed data from surveys. It was that line, i think it was in
San Francisco, from which he retired to poetry after "teaching a
machine to do his job" as i've heard him say.

As to the other subthread regarding "In the mid 90s Allen was
experimenting with photography", Allen had been taking pictures for a
long time (40s? 50s?), so it wasn't anything new and his photo
archives are extensive, but perhaps in later years he did turn to it
more artistically. I'll know better the more i learn.

That's about it really.

O yeah... of course the book's title "I Celebrate Myself" is reference
to Ginsberg's patron poet, Walt. As the Frontispiece elucidates (to
remind us who know & enlighten those unfamiliar):

}
I CELEBRATE myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me, as good belongs to you.
--Walt Whitman
from "Leaves of Grass"

Be Kind,
TheUnknownPoster
___
I didn't come here to solve anything.
I came here to sing
And for you to sing with me.
from "Adapted from Neruda's 'Que dispierte el lenador'", 1978

Joe

unread,
Aug 5, 2007, 3:09:35 AM8/5/07
to
On Aug 3, 7:17 pm, Pilgrim <mcisr...@umich.edu> wrote:
>

> Marketing Genius: The Friendship of Allen Ginsberg and Bob Dylan
> Richard E. Hishmeh11University of California1University of California
> Richard E. Hishmeh earned his PhD in English at the University of
> California, Riverside. Currently, he is an Assistant Professor of
> English at Palomar College in San Marcos, California. He writes
> regularly on American literature, culture, and film.
>

Thanks for the article. The author failed to mention the Bank of
Montreal's use of "The Times they are a-Changin'.

While reading a Ginsberg biography by Barry Miles today I came across
a funny line. Ginsberg gets invited to dinner at a private London
club in the late 50s and he shows up in jeans, sandals and a
turtleneck. His host later described him as having the "look of a
starved wolf."

Joe

Ten

unread,
Aug 5, 2007, 4:59:54 AM8/5/07
to
According to Gregory Corso, "Just Like
A Woman" was about Ginsberg and his
unrequited love for Dylan.

Tim Herrick

unread,
Aug 5, 2007, 12:42:30 PM8/5/07
to
In a message dated 8/5/2007 12:03:04 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
LIST...@LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU writes:

Just Walkin' <kens...@comcast.net>
Subject: Re: The Friendship of Allen Ginsberg and Bob Dylan

> By the time Bob started reading scripture,
>the differences that life wrought between them became so great that
>public friendship wasn't such a great idea anymore.

Since dylan did recieve a bah mitzva (yeah, i spelt it the original
aramiac), which requires he read scripture, and receive some form of training prior,
one might suspect he knew the bible before the born again period, which i am
guessing is the assumption in this silly statement. of course, like judas of
old, or god said to abraham kill me a son, might indicate more than a passing
interest in scripture.

how many public friendships did dylan have in the 80s and 90s. the paparazzi
attack on dylan and garcia attending the copa together? puh-lease.

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Pilgrim

unread,
Aug 6, 2007, 2:30:16 PM8/6/07
to
On Aug 4, 7:54 pm, TheUnknownPoster <dud...@cloud9.net> wrote:

> I'm presently reading Bill Morgan's "I Celebrate Myself (The Somewhat
> Private Life of Allen Ginsberg)". Bill had spent time organising
> Allen's papers, & the book is drawn from the knowledge he acquired in
> performing that function.

Thanks for the heads up on this book and the info on the later
meetings between the two.

>
> I've skipped ahead to the Index (i usually wouldn't). Here are the
> last two entries that tell of direct meetings between Bob & Allen.

<snip>

> Since Harry was in the
> next room, Allen asked him to come out and meet Dylan, but an
> unimpressed Smith slammed the door in his face.
> {

Ouch!

<snip>

> As to the subthread hear about "marketing", the genius might not have
> been Bob's. In Allen's early post-Columbian youth, when he was still
> toying with conformity & heterosexuality or at least paying the rent &
> getting off, his best paying jobs were in marketing where he compiled
> and analysed data from surveys. It was that line, i think it was in
> San Francisco, from which he retired to poetry after "teaching a
> machine to do his job" as i've heard him say.

Interesting - Just like Warhol's early experience with marketing. I
had some difficulty with the marketing theme and have come to the
conclusion that the writer was emphasizing it to tie into the larger
American cultural issus of capitalism and corporatism. The Journal
itself focuses on the broader subject of American culture and not
specifically on the arts in America. The writer is using the public
side of the friendship as a means achieve his larger end of describing
a successful use of image as a way to shape the publics perception of
a product. Like it or not, that's a vital element in America and in
the music industry. Dylan does appear to have been quite conscious of
image from early on and that clearly relates to "brand" presentation
in the marketplace. It's naive to think he wasn't very aware of how
Ginsbergs image assisted his own image development.

I did find the article very perceptive about the 'friend' theme in
Don't Look Back and the use of the photographs on the back of BIABH as
well as the lyrics of the songs as a subtle means to shape awareness
of the changes in Dylans public persona away from "Protest Singer".
Also, I got a good laugh out of the description of the association of
Dylan's music with women's panties in regard to free discs at the
Victoria Secrets stores. Brilliant.

<snip>

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