Bob Dylan is the coolest man in the world, right? I think most of his fans will agree.
But we will also have to accept that not everybody sees him in that way, including my 90-year-old mother who still maintains after half a century that she can’t stand his ‘trilling’…
And as if to add injury to a personal slight, Odyssey, that hip online lifestyle magazine, for instance, put Morgan Freeman – a very cool dude indeed – at the top of its cool list.
Now, I think many of us could live with that, out of respect for Morgan if nothing else. He’s a forces vet who is, at 84, Dylan’s elder after all.
Then they put Brad Pitt at number 6. Fair enough. After all he is so cool that he did once dress up as a giant chicken to advertise, ‘el Pollo Loco’.
And he turned down a role in Apollo 13 to be in Se7en
AND was engaged to Gwyneth Paltrow
AND has been banned from visiting China because of Seven Years in Tibet.
But who the hell bent it for squeaky voiced, tattoo totem pole David Beckham? He got in at number 3 somehow.
And while we’re at it, who the hell is Kobe Bryant?
He’s classed as the 9th coolest man on earth.. and Odyssey describes him as the ‘realest’ man in the world!
WHAT?
Well, like Spartacus I stand up and shout: “No! I am the ‘realest’ man in the world!”
And, as I shout with pride, I’m joined by millions of others who have just as much right to mash the English language and blow their own trumpets…
No!, they cry! I am the ‘realest’ man in the world!
In fact Bob Dylan didn’t get a look in at all on this Odyssey cool list! He was left out in the cold, you might say.
And yet, at 80, Bob is so hot that he is really really cool – here is some factual evidence:
He once traded a priceless Andy Warhol painting for a couch
He has both a Pulitzer and a Nobel Prize under his belt
He predicted his appearance in a Victoria’s Secret commercial 40 years before it happened
He’s toured with everyone from Paul Simon (not cool as far as I’m concerned) to the Foo Fighters (quite cool)
Yep, way back in 2004, Bob Dylan appeared in a Victoria’s Secret commercial with model Adriana Lima. The ad used “Love Sick,” as Lima and Dylan explored the streets and canals of Venice.
Spookily, in an interview from the mid-1960s when asked what product might entice him to sell out, Dylan replied, “Ladies’ undergarments.”
Naughty Bob!
Then in 2018 his Royal Bob-ness showed a flash of anger at audience members who were constantly snapping him and the band.He stopped singing Blowing in the Wind to berate them with: “Take pictures or don’t take pictures, we can either play or we can pose, OK?”
He stood still for several seconds cynically posing for the crowd while the band pointed at offenders.
It was definitely a case of Mr Cool, Mr Right, Mr That Told Him… but then it all went a bit t*ts up for him.
We’ve all been through it, haven’t we? We’ve all done it, made our point, stood on our dignity and immediately slid right off it!
Have you seen dignity?
Well, Bob did one of his famous tip-toe walks, and tripped backwards over a guitar amp. It looked for an agonising second that he was going to hit the deck – a band mate reached out to grab him.
But Bob recovered, regained his feet, patted his hair and carried on like nothing had happened.
What a super trooper!
Plenty of people still describe Bob as ‘the joker man’ – a label he acquired right at the beginning of his career when he was pulling Chaplain-style comedy stunts on stage, in photos and scraps of film. He was good at it and has retained his sense of humour across parts of two centuries.
Bob is a funny man. Everybody says so.
But it was no joke when he met the Pope. He tripped up the steps as the Pope waited to greet him.
Bob was wearing his best Hank Williams outfit, resplendent in big boots and Stetson. The Pope waited in his white dress and best Pope regalia at the top of the stairs.
Some high-end ring kissing was only a few steps away when Bob stumbled and nearly fell.
Again.
Quickly, as befits the world’s coolest man, he recovered with aplomb, whipped off his Stetson in reverence and the two prophets came face to face.
John Paul told Italian Catholics that the answer was indeed “in the wind” — but not in the wind that blew things away, rather “in the wind of the spirit” that would lead them to Christ.
Now that’s cool!
So, let’s give Bob massive applause for the decades of unbelievable music, lyrics, singing, theatre, performing art, literature, poetry, prose, paintings, sketches, wrought iron gates, whisky, laughter and joy…
Here is one of the greatest artists of all time good-naturedly clapping along with his audience in Madrid in 2018 to Desolation Row.
Just brilliant!
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