Good point, McGrath! LOL! Ah, the idiocy that was commonplace...I blush to think of it. Never has there lived a generation of young people so stuck on themselves as that one was...but there was some fine idealism out there as well.

LEJ - Dylan himself later regretted how mean he'd been to some people at that time...note the sense of regret and self-examination in the songs on the album John Wesley Harding, which followed the whirlwind ride of '65-66. The "Wicked Messenger" IS Bob Dylan, as he saw himself in retrospect.

"There was a wicked messenger, from Eli he did come, with a mind that multiplied the smallest matters. When questioned who had sent for him he answered with his thumb, for his tongue it could not speak, but only flatter."

And he then advised himself... "if you cannot bring good news then don't bring any". Those were the few words that "opened up his heart".

Also, Albert Grossman encouraged Dylan's bad attitude in every way he could. It kept the circle small. Grossman was not known to be a "nice man" either, to say the least. Observe his treatment of the man at the hotel counter in "Don't Look Back".

- LH