Complete Unknowns

I live in a conflicted part of Portland. My apartment is on the border of the Pearl---which is full of upscale shops—and Old Town where the fenanyl zombies dwell. There was a boarded up window at Whole Foods. Vandalism is a regular occurrence. I feel like I am neither in one world or the other. I’ve got a job, I’ve got an apartment…but I’m still that guy who lived out of a van, you know? If I had to live out a vehicle I could do it, I still have the stuff….the van life stuff. I lost everything five years ago, everything that is supposed to be important including a long term job and a house—and it was a very positive experience. I cannot look at the world the same, though. This may sound funny but indoor plumbing is still an amazing thing, my coffee maker where I just push a button and….coffee. On the road I had to open the van up, fire up the propane ring, and go through an involved process. Everything is easy now, but there are memories that persist and that’s a good thing.

We live in a highly inauthentic world. Or, maybe it the fakeness is hyper-authentic. The self proclaimed king is a toxic showman—you know who I’m talking about. Is this really happening? Or, is he running some sort of reality show where at some point he winks at the camera and says “gotcha!” I try not to follow the news too much—doom-scrolling, they call it—I did what I could, I voted against the guy. People in other countries are all bug eyed and incredulous, “Why aren’t you on the street protesting?!” Ah, that sort of thing has been marginalized, they know how to spin it so Joe Plumber sees you as some unwashed Marxist. You want to change things, you stop shopping at Amazon and cut up your big bank credit cards and a number of other things. Money. Follow the money, cut off the money and that’s the only pain these carpetbaggers and patent medicine salespeople understand.

I think I’m gonna watch A Complete Unknown at some point. Yeah, it’s a bio-pic, highly infused with fiction, but then again who is Bob Dylan? That wasn’t even his birth name. It’s a fake movie about a created persona. Sixty-five years in we still don’t really know this guy and that’s impressive. The truth is meaningless if you’re entertained or, in Dylan’s case, if his music moves you. People accuse him of stealing old melodies but they fail to point out the amazing lyrics he wrote to those stolen songs. Where the hell did the lyrics to Like a Rolling Stone come from? We’ve had the experience, we’ve had this song around all our lives and it’s like wallpaper now, but in the mid 60s? Back then lyrics were all moon and June and spoon, love and dove and glove…there is a reason why this guy blew people away.

Bob Dylan understands both that you want the answer and yet you don’t. The answer is not interesting, the enigma is, the tension of not knowing is. I see an Audi SUV in the Pearl and I’m not seeing someone who “made it,” I see someone who is $75000 in debt. I see someone trying to create an image. a persona. Maybe the lunatics are the only real ones, too cracked open to hide what lurks inside. Those people sipping their ten dollar coffee drinks and driving their electric enormo-trucks, they’re just hiding. You just pick the illusion that suits you best, I guess...