My Run-in with Bob Dylan

I had just made an ass of myself playing Lincoln in an Acting Before Camera
class at NYU’s film school.

It was a balmy late morning in Washington Square, and to ease my humiliation, I stole a couple of tokes and headed for the park:

Washington Square Park, May 1964

Catching some rays
between classes when
a curly-haired guy in corduroy
sits down next to me,
a tattered copy of Rimbaud’s
Illuminations in hand. Man,
I know this guy, I think to myself
as I sneak a sidelong glance —
and damned if it isn’t freewheelin’
Bob Dylan himself!

“Pardon me, Mr. Dylan,
but I have to tell you that
Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right
finally gave me the courage
to leave that treacherous
woman of mine.”

Bob shrugs, going back to
Rimbaud as though I were
pollen in the wind, at which point
I somehow gather the nerve
to scribble a note,
You’re an electric guy, Bob,
slipping it into the open patch
pocket of his jacket.

When Dylan shocked the
Newport Folk Festival
a year later, going electric on
Maggie’s Farm, I sat back smugly
in my NYU dorm, stoned
enough to believe I had
scribbled my way into history.