Rolling Thunder, Reviewed

Have you watched The Rolling Thunder Revue on Netflix? I recommend it. My favorite Bob Dylan is the Bob Dylan of the year I was born. 1977, the album Desire — songs like “One More Cup Of Coffee.” It’s an album of lore and legend. Double crossing heroes and love-stricken bandits. Dylan was newly divorced. He was back on tour. He was peak wizard gypsy poet. 

So this Martin Scorsese documentary captures the chaos and beauty of that time very well. I especially like when cantankerous present-day Dylan insists like an old buzzard that he doesn’t remember anything that happened on that tour back in ’77 because that was 40 years ago — that was before he was even born. 

I’m drawn to the idea that you’re born multiple times throughout your life. I often think back and intuitively know that I was born when I moved to Portland. I was born when I got married. I was born when I got my first dog. I was born when my first dog died. And so on. Each era is a sort of birth, and maybe a kind of death too. 

“Life isn’t about finding yourself — or finding anything,” He also says. “It’s about creating yourself, and creating things.” I like that too. I’ve always and forever been looking for something and I never really did find it. “Looking” is a passive act. “Creating” is where all the magic power is at.