THIS Rhett Butler Will Never Die

KFOG, San Francisco's premiere quality rock & roll radio station is sponsoring a special Bob Dylan concert on Tuesday, August 25 at The Warfield and are giving away two tickets to the whoever submitted the best essay entitled, "What I did on my summer vacation", using as many Bob Dylan song titles as possible. The deadline for entries was 7am this morning. I wrote this in about 15 minutes at around 10:30 last night. Not sure when they'll announce the winner. “What I did on my summer vacation” Fixin’ to Die , walkin’ down  Highway 51 , sang a  Song to Woody ; a  Restless Farewell .  On The Road Again , came to  Maggie’s Farm .  I Want You ,  Just Like A Woman,   Corrina Corrina  told me.  I Shall Be Free  in  Oxford Town  I thought.  Joey, Sara, Hazel, Isis, Frankie & Albert, Diamond Joe, Little Maggie, Mary Ann, Sarah Jane, & Mr. Bojangles ; they were all  Honest With Me . Said, “ Mississippi...

Nanowrimo, National Novel Writing Month, occurs during the month of November every year. I successfully completed writing a 50,000 word novel by participating in this project one year, 2004 I believe it was. Did I ever go back to edit or rewrite that piece of "work". I might have played around with it for a couple of months but basically gave up on it. The years since I ceremoniously jump on the projects bandwagon but have not completed it again. This year I felt a little more ambitious about the project, and actually, each year I cumulate an aura of energy and excitement about the work I have done on my real, ongoing novel project for my book about the story of a young girl haunted by the ghost of a literary master and use November to get more focused and centralized. November is like my "New Years" when I make resolutions to work more and harder on finishing the novel. Am I actually any closer to getting this thing finished? No, not really but in the last year the...

I had one of the most incredible dreams I've ever had this morning. It was with Bob Dylan and the young person that led me to understand his genius. The dream took place in a small town where Dylan was going to perform. He sent me a text message on my cell phone and told me to bring my friend, that he wanted to meet us and that he had something to give us. I found my friend and she was so excited. "What could he possibly have to give to us, he has given us so much already?", she said over and over. We met him in an empty parking lot in the dark of street lights. Now this is almost hilarious but he smiled so big and said "I've wanted to meet you so badly!" and was actually giggling! Then he handed us a golden ticket (I thought it was a credit card) and he said "Use this. It will take you anywhere. Just remember though that I will always be there with you. All you need to do is remember my songs." God. Now I'm crying. Life without Dylan. How have...

I can make this easy or I can make this hard. The easy way is to tell you that it's Bob Dylan's birthday and suggest that you listen to some of his music today. Better yet, go to the library (or your nearest bookstore), sit down and read a few chapters about his life. This guy is getting old now, although he'll probably live to be 101 - it's just that you don't know when death will take anyone away from us, right? If you were like me and had lived over 45 years of your life of "not getting" Dylan, maybe this will be your lucky year. The hard way would be for me to start writing pages and pages about what Bob Dylan has done to change my life - in just a little over a years time I now testify that this man has changed the way I look at the world, the way I interpret events, love, death, and everything else in between. And do you know what? I'm going to do it the hard way. I am going to write a lot today about Mr. Dylan and what he has done to my h...