The Bill Nowlin Bob Dylan Connection

 

I became acquainted with Bill Nowlin when I joined the Society of American Baseball Research (SABR) about eight years ago.  I have fact-checked many of his contributions to the Games Project.  He must be SABR's most prolific writer with over 1000 publications with most of them concerning the Boston Red Sox and their players. Bill has written biographies of even the most obscure players for the Red Sox.  Some are in the SABR Bio project while others are complete books.

Bill was also one of the founders of Rounder Records.  I have a journal entry reviewing Vinyl Ventures My Fifty Years at Rounder Records.

He has just published a new book Bitten By the Red Sox Bug a Fan's Lifelong Passion.  I just started to read it today,  While I had to read up to page 958 in Barbra Streisand's to find a connection to Bob Dylan, but I only had to read to page 48 to find a Bob Dylan connection in Bill's book.  In 1963 he saw Bob Dylan at Cafe Yana next door to Fenway Park.  I used my expert research skills to find documentation of this concert.  There is also a reference to this concert in the April 19, 2023 edition of the Boston Globe that can be accessed through Newspapers.com.

It is a shame that Bill didn't sign Mr. Dillon to Rounder Records.

A Complete Unknown - a Bob Dylan Biopic will be Released in December

 

A Complete Unknown is an upcoming American biographical drama film directed by James Mangold and written by Mangold and Jay Cocks, based on the 2015 book Dylan Goes Electric! by Elijah Wald.  Timothy Chalomet plays the young Dylan during the controversy when he gave up acoustic folk music.

The trailer was just released.  Since my local multiplex recently closed, I must travel somewhere to see the film.

If I Were a Carpenter - Versions by the Four Tops and Bobby Darin

 

A few days ago we discovered that Duke Fakir, the Four Tops' last surviving member, passed away at age 88.  This cover of a Tim Hardin song hit #20 on the Billboard Chart in 1968.  Bobby Darin had the bigger hit reaching #8 on Billboard in 1966.

An Atlas of Es Devlin at the Cooper-Hewett Museum

 

Instead of watching a ball game on TV, we decided to go to a museum on a Sunday afternoon.  Our last museum trip was last November at MOMA .  Our last visit to Cooper Hewitt was in August 2021.

The entire third floor was devoted to "An Atlas of Es Devlin,  an English artist and stage designer who works in a range of media, often mapping light and projected film onto kinetic sculptural forms. She has received several accolades including a Tony Award and two Olivier Awards. 

While I was in the museum I looked at my phone and found out about Biden's dropping of the race for President.

Both the Mets and Yankees lost this afternoon so we picked the right Sunday to go to a museum

There is a Barbra Streisand - Bob Dylan Connection

 

I finally finished the 966-page memoir of Barbra Streisand.  It was an excellent book, but I think she could have cut it down.  There was no mention of Bob Dylan until page 958 seen below.

You may have to download the JPG and enlarge it to read it.  In the 1970s Dylan sent her flowers and a note asking her to sing with him. It never happened but  I don't think that would have worked out since their voices would have clashed.  In 1983 when the film Yentl was released Dylan sent Barbra a letter saying there are songs on that album (I assume Infidels) that he thought she would like to do,  Which one? Jokerman? License to Kill? Union Sundown?  In any event, it never happened.

In 2020 a transcript of an unpublished interview from 1971 Dylan said "Lay Lady, Lay" was written for Barbra Streisand.

Thoughts on Writing 5000 Posts for Bruce's Journal

It is hard to believe that I have reached 5000 journal entries since I started writing on October 15, 2005.  I made one entry and kept going.  I guess I express myself better in writing than I do verbally.  Back then AOL supported blogs, but later on I transitioned the journal to Blogger a service of Google, and got the domain bruceslutsky.com .  The entries range from the ridiculous to the sublime.  I don’t know the real number of how many people have read an entry.  The stats provided by Blogger indicate there were about 1,700,000 hits, but most of those must have come from robots.  The statistics also state that many hits are from China where I am a complete unknown.

I have written on topics including (in no particular order):

• ·        New York Mets
• ·        Baseball
• ·        Bob Dylan
• ·        Other Music – very often I post a song from YouTube.  Many of those videos have been deleted. I should try to replace them.
• ·        Jeopardy
• ·        Random Thoughts of the Day

According to Blogger, my most popular entries were

·        TGIF

• ·        The Tale of the Two-Dollar Bill
• ·        Jeopardy and the Two-Dollar Bill
• ·        Congratulations to the Beach Boys on their 50^th Anniversary
• ·        Jason Keller – Jeopardy Superstar
• ·        Mumbles was my Favorite Dick Tracy Villain

Those are certainly not my most distinguished posts.

My best posts IMHO were these two that were very personal

Remembering Alan Berman

Bruce and Karen (October 16, 1983 - February 16, 2021) Remembering the Good Times - Her Memory is a Blessing

Many posts were autobiographical.  The best way to find those is to go to the search box in the upper left corner and search for:

• ·        Rego Park
• ·        Forest Hills
• ·        City College
• ·        Rhode Island
• ·        New Brunswick

 

Readers can post comments on Blogger, but most of the comments I receive are on Facebook.

I got into “trouble” once when a pompous professor objected to something I wrote about.  This actually made it to the New York Times.  I challenge my readers to find the article.  Since that time I have been more careful about what I write.  I often use initials instead of a full name since people can Google themselves.

I wonder how much time I have spent over the years writing journal entries.  I don’t have to be concerned with editors or fact-checkers.

Thanks for reading.

 

Reading Barbara Streisand's 966 Page Memoir

 

I regularly peruse the stacks of my small public library and usually don't find books of interest.  I looked at Barbra Streisand's big memoir and was reluctant to take it out, but eventually, I did.  It was very heavy and difficult to schlep.

As of this writing, I have 100 pages to go.  I can't remember reading a book so large.  She had a phenomenal career as a singer, actress, director, and producer.  Over the years she kept a journal and used her notes to write the memoir.  She said that she viewed some of her films again while writing the book which must have taken years to do.  It was very detailed.  I should finish it in a few days.