Modern Times

Yes, I live. It's been more than a month since I've posted anything, and quite frankly I've thought about quitting this silly little blog. I have enough to do--why should I continue this when I could be working on my so-called novel, or perhaps putting together my history of Denver's 16th Street (a book I've planned to write since about 1997)? But I'm not quitting just yet.

Unlike, I'm afraid, one of my cultural heroes. I've just put two and two together, and realized that Bob Dylan's next album, entitled Modern Times, could likely--will likely--be his last. People who know me know that I've been a Dylan fan for 23 years, and I've stuck with him through thick (wonderful albums like Oh Mercy, Time Out of Mind, and Love & Theft) and thin (excrement like Dylan & The Dead, Knocked Out Loaded, and Down in the Groove). So figuring this out hits me rather hard. And yes, you can be gay and a Bob Dylan fan. I'm proof.

I could be wrong--Dylan has never said he'd retire, and I don't think he will. I think he'll suddenly not wake up one day, and I will have to wear black for a while. It's in the symbols:

1. The new album, to be released on the last Tuesday in August, is called Modern Times. Charlie Chaplin's final film was also called Modern Times. In the liner notes to the very first Bob Dylan album, Bob Dylan (1962), is this statement:

Another strong influence on Bob Dylan was not a musician primarily, although he has written music, but a comedian -- Charlie Chaplin. After seeing many Chaplin films, Dylan found himself beginning to pick up some of the gestures of the classic tramp of silent films. Now as he appears on the stage in a humorous number, you can see Dylan nervously tapping his hat, adjusting it, using it as a prop, almost leaning on it, as the Chaplin tramp did before him.

Okay, that's a tenuous connection. Bob Dylan isn't Charles Chaplin--but like Chaplin, he's the greatest artist in his field, and like Chaplin's influence on film, he has influenced countless singers and songwriters. And Dylan knows Chaplin's work and career trajectory. Modern Times was Chaplin's final statement.

2. The last song on the new album is "Ain't Talkin.'" Oh really? He's never been one for talking, preferring to cloak his utterances in mystery, in non sequiturs, in magic symbolism. But if this were to be the last cut on the last album, what a fitting title.

3. This is entirely personal, and somewhat narcissistic: I'm 44. This is his 44th album. His first was released in 1962. I was born in 1962. Add four and four and you get eight, which is a powerful number. It all adds up.

Maybe I'm nuts, but I think Modern Times is his last album.....say it isn't so, Bob!