Hooded-Bob Dylan Public-Urinal Encounter: road-to-Emmaus double-

piss take 1987

Within the last few days one of Expectingrain's appalling Google-translated articles, if it was not
human-translated, opened with this killer line about one of the European gigs:

"Bob Dylan opened the leak, as well as many of the more profound!"

Could this be the chosen epitaph when it is already Dark? Not that graveyards are really in these
days. But if Dylan gets cremated, how will Jesus or his Heavenly Daddy resurrect him as opposed
to have to recreate his 'ye shall be changed' body? The New Testament is very hot on resurrection
being physical and literal. But resurrected bodies seem to do funny things like appearing indoors
without having been let in. I am the man, Thomas. I almost digress. But not quite.

I know someone who took a leak with Dylan at a UK motorway services in 1987. Dylan was
reported in the UK press that year as having been spotted wandering off into fields beside
motorway services; and Wanted Man's Telegraph magazine or attached paraphernalia covered this.
This was his hoodie year. Or the start of them. I have a scan somewhere of one of those shots where
he is covering his face under a hood with leather fingerless gloves: 'Hey! Look at me I'm
inconspicuous!' Renaldo-Jack Fate: Come and get my in-your-face anonymous inaccessibility.

I knew a guy with an encyclopedic knowledge of Dylan trivia, thanks in no small part, I think, to
his obsessive trawling of the expectingrain website. But not confined to this. He has such an extent
of knowledge that it appears to be on the level of Aspergers syndrome or obsessive-compulsive
disorder or something. In fact at a Michael Gray talk at an Arts Centre a few years ago, he stopped
Michael in his tracks when he claimed that Baby Stop Crying was Dylan's last hit single, if I
remember correctly. In any case, this fellow Jeremy started hectoring Michael in high-pitched South
Yorkshire tones, Barnsley to be precise. Jeremy rattled off a list of other Dylan singles since Baby
Stop Crying and listed their positions in the charts on both sides of the Atlantic, exactly. He pointed
out that the charts are really the top 100, if I remember correctly, and that Michael's going by the
Top 20 only was arbitrary and incorrect. It matters little to me either way and I may not be accurate
in every detail here. It might just boil down to 'we just saw it from a different point of view'. I did
not know this guy Jeremy at the time and could really only hear a commotion rather than the
content, as that is Jeremy's style. I include this by way of providing context to Jeremy's
encyclopedic one-upmanship approach. Michael was either embarrassed or unimpressed and just
said 'Well' and moved swiftly on. Or in Jeremy's words, 'I proved him wrong in public and he just
couldn't take it'.

But getting back to the point: when Jeremy was on his way to one of the Wembley gigs in October
1987, he was taking a leak at one of the motorway services. This was to be his first Dylan gig. As
the green steam rose, a hooded figure with boots and trademark bandy legs waddled up to the urinal
flanked by two men. (Well, I say bandy legs but Jeremy didn't, so who knows) Jeremy, being a
genial Barnsley boy who routinely chats to strangers (unlike the 'rude uncultured barmy scum' in the
rest of the UK), said, 'I'm pissing myself with excitement, I'm on my way to see Bob Dylan, I'm just
so excited'. The mysterious stranger said nothing, just chuckled, pulled back up his fly and left
without a word.

Twenty years later: 'Do you think it really was Bob?'

'Well, who tf else do you think it was with two bodyguards and wearing a sports hoodie thing that
he was known for in that year in addition to wandering off into motorway services fields. Plus the
fact you were on your way to see him? I mean if it didn't look like Bob why are you even telling me
this twenty years later?'
'Well, you see there was a guy in East Enders at the time who looked a bit like Bob, and I
wondered if it could have been him'.

Hmm, but would he need bodyguards and a hood, just in the year when Bob was documented in the
press AND in the specialist Telegraph fanzine as wearing hoodies and wandering about in UK
motorway services fields? Why didn't Jeremy do a double take? He knows how to take a piss and
take the piss, even how to do a double-piss take with Bob Dylan. So why not a double take of Dylan
having a piss? Not to have done so is clearly a double piss-take of us all.

Jeremy looks and sounds somewhat like John Harris, a Northern gabbler of a UK-arts critic. He
sometimes appears on the BBC Late Night Review Show, now transmogrified into the Review
Show. Harris clearly led the highly sarcastic Q DYLAN SPECIAL in 2000, saying what a genius
Dylan is but pissing all over him. Jeremy's definition of being cultured is that you must be into Bob
Dylan. If you are, you are clearly cultured. (So why did my articles give him a headache?) T S
Eliot in The Waste Land:

Who is the third who walks always beside you?

When I count, there are only you and I together 360
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
- But who is that on the other side of you?

I heard in my Eng lit school days that this is 'about' the risen Jesus on the road to Emmaus. But
'definition destroys' of course, as a great man said in '65 or '66.

Luke 24:13-32 (The Message)

The Road to Emmaus

13-16That same day two of them were walking to the village Emmaus, about seven miles out of
Jerusalem. They were deep in conversation, going over all these things that had happened. In the
middle of their talk and questions, Jesus came up and walked along with them. But they were not
able to recognize who he was.
17-18He asked, "What's this you're discussing so intently as you walk along?"
They just stood there, long-faced, like they had lost their best friend. Then one of them, his name
was Cleopas, said, "Are you the only one in Jerusalem who hasn't heard what's happened during the
last few days?"
19-24He said, "What has happened?"
They said, "The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene. He was a man of God, a prophet,
dynamic in work and word, blessed by both God and all the people. Then our high priests and
leaders betrayed him, got him sentenced to death, and crucified him. And we had our hopes up that
he was the One, the One about to deliver Israel. And it is now the third day since it happened. But
now some of our women have completely confused us. Early this morning they were at the tomb
and couldn't find his body. They came back with the story that they had seen a vision of angels who
said he was alive. Some of our friends went off to the tomb to check and found it empty just as the
women said, but they didn't see Jesus."
25-27Then he said to them, "So thick-headed! So slow-hearted! Why can't you simply believe all
that the prophets said? Don't you see that these things had to happen, that the Messiah had to suffer
and only then enter into his glory?" Then he started at the beginning, with the Books of Moses, and
went on through all the Prophets, pointing out everything in the Scriptures that referred to him.
28-31They came to the edge of the village where they were headed. He acted as if he were going
on but they pressed him: "Stay and have supper with us. It's nearly evening; the day is done." So he
went in with them. And here is what happened: He sat down at the table with them. Taking the
bread, he blessed and broke and gave it to them. At that moment, open-eyed, wide-eyed, they
recognized him. And then he disappeared.
32Back and forth they talked. "Didn't we feel on fire as he conversed with us on the road, as he
opened up the Scriptures for us?"