Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: Peace
Date: 04 Apr 04 - 11:50 AM

Alas, I shall never find out Victoria's Secret. Hey, girl AND guy guest, do you purchase from VS? Have you written your letters to VS to lodge your complaint--or are you worried that VS will simply throw your missive in the trash because it has no signature? Easy to see where you are coming from.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: Peace
Date: 04 Apr 04 - 11:27 AM

GUEST took them all away from him.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From:
Date: 04 Apr 04 - 11:26 AM

I'm just glad he isn't wearing a bra and panties himself.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: GUEST,Bob Fan
Date: 04 Apr 04 - 06:51 AM

I love Dylan too and I think it's a riot! It makes me laugh every time I see it though my brain doesn't quite sure know what compartment to place it in.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: Strick
Date: 04 Apr 04 - 01:10 AM

"What amazes me is the sheer number of posts on this thread."

Amen. Actually I saw the longer version of the ad as I was flipping channels last night. It's better than a lot of commercials, I could figure out what they were advertising. The young lady was amply covered and, as in most cases, her garb was as dirty or chaste and demure as you make it out to be in your own head.

And if Dylan was learing, he needs to get his learer fixed. I think that was just him acting, generally a mistake.

So why is Dylan selling out to make this commercial and Tiger Woods isn't when he made that Caddyshack spoofing ad? Now that's one funny, musically related commercial ("I'm all right...").

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: Matt_R
Date: 04 Apr 04 - 12:48 AM

I love Dylan. Seeing him anywhere is always awesome to me.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: Amos
Date: 03 Apr 04 - 08:57 PM

It is possible that the large number of comments are inspired by the sultry Lolita-type angel with the fluffy wings. Try to be objective, now, Little Hawk!! :>))

A

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: Little Hawk
Date: 03 Apr 04 - 08:48 PM

What amazes me is the sheer number of posts on this thread. It's the most successful Dylan thread ever on Mudcat. I'm not sure if I've seen the whole ad or not...I haven't seen it on TV, so I assume I've missed part of it.

- LH

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 03 Apr 04 - 08:10 PM

Show of hands - how many people who have been making comments about the ad have actually watched the entire ad?   Hmmmm...

Guest 10:04am may not realize it, but I actually agree with him/her/it . People do tend to judge others based on their own "yardstick of values".   While it is true, it is very unfair and self-righteous for us to assume anything, just as Guest 10:04 seems to assume that those of us that like the commercial are Dylan "devotees". I admire his music, but I do not let that cloud my feelings about the ad - positive or negative. I wonder if Guest can say the same thing?

Again, this is all a tempest in a teapot over a relatively minor issue. It does appear that those who have placed Dylan on a pedestal can call him a sellout, so be it.   There is nothing wrong with making an honest dollar or honest art.   Dylan can do both, and more power to him.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: GUEST,Bob Fan
Date: 03 Apr 04 - 08:05 PM

He mighta been wearin a dress or one of them funny little man skirts. Don't you find it somewhat suspicious that they don't show any part of him below the neck.

He even might have doilies on around his suspenders. I bet he does!!

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: Peace
Date: 03 Apr 04 - 06:13 PM

Now, THAT is a good question.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: Little Hawk
Date: 03 Apr 04 - 05:34 PM

More importantly, was he wearing a corset? :-)

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: Peace
Date: 03 Apr 04 - 05:18 PM

Wonder why the girl guest didn't complain about the makeup worn by the females? Makes them look cheap. Some guest said VS sells underwear. What's with the makeup? And was Bob wearing any?

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: Peace
Date: 03 Apr 04 - 05:13 PM

Maybe he's takin' the money he makes from the commercial and putting it to a shelter for wayward women? Settle down girl guest, maybe he is.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: Little Hawk
Date: 03 Apr 04 - 05:05 PM

By God, Bob Fan, I think you've got it. It is a joke. I remember that quote now. And notice the sardonic look on his face in the ad. When you're in Bob's position in life you are free to make such jokes whether or not anyone gets it. His album notes and titles are also full of obscure references back to stuff that happened way back in the 60's. "Empire Burlesque" is one example...it was a club where he had played on various occasions when he was starting out.

- LH

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: GUEST,Bob Fan
Date: 03 Apr 04 - 04:58 PM

it's a joke. back in 1966 he did an interview where they asked him what he would rather be doing besides writing and performing songs and he said he'd like to sell women's undergarments.

he's simply making his dream come true.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: Little Hawk
Date: 03 Apr 04 - 04:51 PM

That is indeed a puzzler. He doesn't need the money or the exposure. He's not short of work. I think maybe he did it out of a sheer contrariness. He likes doing things that people don't expect him to do. He is the eternal inconoclast, forever shattering his own public image so as not to be defined or trapped by it. His album "Self-Portrait", for example, seems to have been calculated in order to alienate his more fanatical fans in the late 60's and make them just go away and leave him alone. I liked some of the stuff on it, though.

- LH

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: Peace
Date: 03 Apr 04 - 02:13 PM

I admire his music/songs. I am less enraptured with the notion of him doing an ad. And if people could actually get over the idea that there is skin in commercials (seen the cover of Cosmopolitan lately?) and maybe a company is using sex to make a sale, (surprise, surprise) , they might get to the real issue. Why, for God's sake?

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: Little Hawk
Date: 03 Apr 04 - 01:17 PM

There are a few things Bob does on occasion that I don't like very much...but I still love Bob. This is for 2 reasons.

1. My love for Bob is unconditional. Why? Who knows. I guess because I've known about him very well for a very long time.

2. He's done a lot of wonderful music over the years and put some very powerful ideas in songs.

Among his songs there are a couple that I don't like very much, and a whole bunch that I love.

The Victoria's Secret ad is unusual, intriguing, but it doesn't bother me. I guess that's just a question of individual taste. If Paul Anka had done the ad, I probably would regard it with some contempt, because I have less respect for him than for Dylan.

How many people does one love unconditionally in one's life? Very few, unless one has attained enlightenment. In my case, it's still very few...but I do have a certain measure of goodwill toward just about everybody. Even Don Cherry and George Bush. :-)

- LH

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: Peace
Date: 03 Apr 04 - 11:08 AM

GUEST of 10:04 am. Right Said Fred. Good Rap.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: GUEST,Nancy King at work
Date: 03 Apr 04 - 10:48 AM

I haven't seen the commercial, but I sure have heard about it...

On the radio driving to work this morning, there was a "news" story about it, which included the following:

"Purists might wonder what would make Dylan sell out. To quote a 1965 interview, 'Women's underwear.' "

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Apr 04 - 10:04 AM

People who are Dylan devotees aren't going to dislike ANYTHING their man does, pure and simple. He could be a mass murderer, and they'd come up with a reason to stick by him.

Ron, you seem to conveniently forget we judge people all the time, and measure what they seem to be against our own yardstick of values. You also seem to be unaware we have other options for expressing our displeasure with The Bob besides choosing not to buy VS undies (which aren't realistic clothing options for most humans anyway).

We can boycott Bob Dylan. Of course, I've been boycotting Bob Dylan since "Tangled Up in Blue" went out to the highest bidder, so I can't do anything more than I already have, besides share my opinion of him with others, which is what I'm doing in this thread and in my 3D life when this dumb fucking soft porn commercial comes up as a subject around the watercooler and among friends.

I once admired his songwriting ability, but have never felt he was THE musical icon of my generation, nor the spokesman of people of conscience of my generation, as his myth and hype PR machine has portrayed him over the years.

After all these years of enduring the Dylan hype, I not only do not admire the man, but I have nothing but contempt for Bob Dylan, as should be plain from this thread. He appears to me to be a person of little integrity, and even less talent. His most devoted fans appear to me, to be applauding their memories of an idyllic Dylan which never existed. That is my opinion. I have no expectation that Dylan devotees will share it. In fact, I'm sure they will find it to be nearly impossible to even tolerate it in their presence.

Because I don't like Bob Dylan or certain Mudcat posters doesn't make me a mean person. Though people who attempt to conflate personal taste/opinion which conflicts with their own with negative character traits of the person whose tastes they don't share, in my experience, are passive aggressive jerks.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: Peter T.
Date: 03 Apr 04 - 08:53 AM

We can't see the real world for all the advertising plastered over it.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: JennyO
Date: 03 Apr 04 - 01:55 AM

Personally, I can't see what all the fuss is about. It's an ad for chrissake - a good ad in my opinion, and I think Dylan looks good.

There is a real world out there you know.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: freda underhill
Date: 02 Apr 04 - 10:40 PM

you know, i havent even seen the ad!!

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: GUEST,Al Aronowitz, reborn
Date: 02 Apr 04 - 10:13 PM

It's clear as rain to me, Jolly Good, that we have both failed to understand one another's intentions and implications. That makes us even. I admire mature women. Have you seen the video of "Sweetheart Like You"? Does the woman in the Victoria's Secret ad strike you as "immature"? Hard to say, isn't it?... unless you've met her.

I think you're just pissed off that I don't make as vulnerable a target as what you had in mind....nor does Bob Dylan. But again, I may be wrong. Maybe you are filled with nothing but good intentions. I wouldn't bet on it, though. ;-) I suspect that you are in fact mean and spiteful, and hoping to score some really hurtful points on various regular members of this forum while beating your favorite drum. It's hard to do that when they, like you and me, remain nothing but a faceless name on a computer screen.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 02 Apr 04 - 09:45 PM

Some of you people are just too much. The man doesn't walk on water. If he wants to sell a song for a commercial, so be it. If you don't wish to buy the product, don't.    How dare anyone try to place their values on someone else.

I still think he looks great in the video - not craggy but clean. Isn't it a bit hypocritical for people to make fun of the way Dylan looks and then take exception to the way a model looks?

I know that I've contributed to this mess of a discussion, but isn't it rather sad that we can waste so much energy discussing women's underwear and what a man chooses to do with his own life? Shame on all of us, myself included.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: robomatic
Date: 02 Apr 04 - 09:27 PM

Dylan's words taken up and put into a different song by Steve Goodman and quite appropriate here:

"Ain't it hard to realizzzzzzeeee
He ain't sellin' any alibiiiiiiiiiis
As he stares into the vacuum of your eeyeyyyyeyeyyyyes
And says, D'you'wanna make a deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeal? "

<"We wound up at the lost and found
Love is blind but now I see
That my whole world lies waiting
Behind...Door Number Three">

Selling out is one of the two great American Traditions
the other one is striving to be the kind of person who has something worth selling out

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Apr 04 - 08:43 PM

Calender Girls

As GUEST Date: 02 Apr 04 - 08:16 PM (use a bloody handle!) was saying...

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Apr 04 - 08:18 PM

I get the impression that some people may have missed that it is clearly intended to be tongue in cheek. Well, it's intended to sell underwear, so far as the people paying for it are concerned, but it's being done in a humorous mode.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Apr 04 - 08:16 PM

"...an old, notably unattractive, fully clothed cleaning lady..."

Interesting that when I challenged the age bias that freda said she was sick and tired of, that the above is apparently what "60 year old woman" conjures for Reborn Al.

But actually, I wasn't thinking that 60 year old women were unattratctive, bottom of the status hierarchy "cleaning lady" sorts of people when I said "60 year old nearly nude women".

Rather, I was actually thinking more along the lines of Tina Turner, Toni Morrison, Joni Mitchell, Diane Keaton, Lauren Hutton, Buffy St Marie, Julie Christie, Vanessa Redgrave, Joan Baez, Emmylou Harris, or a bazillion others.

Or the millions of beautiful older women with smooth AND wrinkled (in all the right places) skin, large and small bones, short and long legs...

But you run with your stereotype there Al, and I'll run with mine.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: Peace
Date: 02 Apr 04 - 07:38 PM

Not like cheese

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: GUEST,Al Aronowitz, reborn
Date: 02 Apr 04 - 07:32 PM

Cool of you to suggest that, Jolly Good. I'll mention it to Bob and we'll see if he goes for the idea. You may recall that he had an old, notably unattractive, fully clothed cleaning lady featured at length in the video of the song "Sweetheart Like You" (1985 - Empire Burlesque album). It wasn't well received by an uncomprehending public, because it did NOT feature a young, attractive woman. Apparently Bob can do no right when it comes to this matter...according to certain people.

Old, wrinkly men do not get a good reception from the public either, but there is Bob on camera...this could be seen as a form of liberation, I think. Though one gets old on the outside, on the inside one never really stops being young. And that is because: the soul does not age.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: Peace
Date: 02 Apr 04 - 07:26 PM

Because, 60 year old nude women appeal to 60 year old nude men.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: GUEST,Jolly Good Guest
Date: 02 Apr 04 - 07:03 PM

So it's fine for the fellas to look at acres and acres of airbrushed, smooth, wrinklefree skin, but not a mature woman, right?

So boys (that includes you freda), why do you suppose it is that Dylan didn't make a commercial selling "Just Her Size" undies with 60 year old nearly nude women?

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: freda underhill
Date: 02 Apr 04 - 06:43 PM

yes, a big fan of both.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: GUEST,Jolly Good Guest
Date: 02 Apr 04 - 06:39 PM

So freda, I take it you are both a brucie and a fan of The Bob?

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: freda underhill
Date: 02 Apr 04 - 06:39 PM

and furthermore..

young, men don't appeal to me. they're like skinless chickens, all smooth and uninteresting. I like people with character, people who've lived a life, who've developed their potential, people with humour, and with strong feelings.

no amount of Calvin Klein body spray or designer clothes can replace that.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: GUEST,BH
Date: 02 Apr 04 - 06:35 PM

I was despondent when Dylan sold the rights to "Tangled Up in Blue". What kept rumbling through my thoughts was "Aint it hard when you discover that/He really wasn't where it's at/After he took from you everything/He could steal.."

I didn't think he could sink much lower than where he has gone in the last decade or so. But Victoria's Secret? Jesus. Is Dylan so isolated and surrounded with sycophants that there is no one to tell him that the commercial not only makes him look creepy, but that commercial endorsements always end up making the artist look petty, greedy, and stupid?

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: freda underhill
Date: 02 Apr 04 - 06:24 PM

hey, whacko guest/troll/troublemaker

if you want to get stuck into dylan, okay, hes an international star. leave brucie alone, he's my star.

"We have had professional sports people advertising shoes made by enslaved children in SouthEast Asia. Is this any more lewd or disgusting than that? We use tax money to have farmers burn wheat crops rather than get that 'surplus' food to where people can eat it. Millions starve to death every year on this planet, and the moral f#ckin' majority is worried about some ad that don't amount to a hill of beans."

wise words, bruce.

and interesting, what this guest is saying is that older men are dirty pedophiles who lust after young women, and that by happening to be in a room when a Victoria's secret ad comes on, they are all digusting drooling animals.

its a low blow to get stuck into someone's age. its a low blow to get stuck into someones sexuality. and to combine those into the one hit is even lower. GUEST, you're projecting a lot of negative thoughts onto men, mature aged man, here. men over fifty, women over fifty, we have a whole range of feelings, emotions and experiences. leave us, GUEST.

i think its just a matter of time before a mudcatter gets tageted by some troll, ive realised this. strangely something a bit like this happened to me here in the cat, last week. i was lucky in that no negative comments appeared in a public forum.

but these comments here are nasty.

i went to jeff (pene azul) who tracked down the evil dude. GUEST, while youre anonymous in the post, you still leave a computer trail.

hey bruce, come around to my place and I'll cook you a meal. you can bring your cats and penguin. anytime.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: Peace
Date: 02 Apr 04 - 06:12 PM

Well, that makes it Miller time.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Apr 04 - 06:06 PM

How can you say the mood isn't light? Didn't you like the Viagara joke as a response to why Dylan made the ladies undies commerical with the angels?

Now I'm trying to envision the New Old Bob obituaries, wherein he is listed as singer (sic), songwriter, actor (ahem), and spokesman for Italian wine and ladies lingerie.

"Icon of Italian Wine, Scantily Clad Women, and Protest Songs Departs Planet Waves"?

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: Peace
Date: 02 Apr 04 - 06:02 PM

Guest Brittany wasn't me, nor was Victoria

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Apr 04 - 05:50 PM

Remote Control Weblog
San Diego Union-Tribune television critic Robert Laurence's observations on television

March 31, 2004
Bob Dylan and lingerie

There weren't any boots of Spanish leather, nor a leopard skin pill box hat, but that was Bob Dylan in a TV commercial for Victoria's Secret which ran Tuesday night during "American Idol."

And it wasn't a pretty sight.

Yes, there was Dylan's craggy visage right there in the middle of the clothes line saga, right with Victoria's young, leggy models.

Bad idea, Bob.

he looks like a gentleman of some years leering through a hole in the wall at the babes in their dressing room.

But this isn't all.

Bob's also licensed the title of his "Planet Waves" album as the name of an Italian wine.

Do you think he needs the money?

Posted by Robert Laurence at March 31, 2004 01:49 PM |

I know sex is supposed to sell. But sex with Bob Dylan? EEUUGH!

Posted by: ziza at April 2, 2004 06:08 AM

I think the add is a bit disturbing, I get the dirty old man vibe from it also. Jacob Dylan would have made it a good commercial. Not Grandpa Dylan!

Posted by: Dee at April 2, 2004 08:18 AM
Post a comment

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Apr 04 - 05:44 PM

The wines they are a-changin': bottled Bob to sell for £35

John Hooper in Rome
Tuesday March 30, 2004
The Guardian

Bob Dylan is a man of many aspects: poet, protester and born-again Christian. Now, it seems, the bard has turned to the bottle.
The eternal bohemian has developed an interest in upmarket Italian wine, with the result that, later this year, a classy blend of Montepulciano and Merlot will reach the shelves in a bottle signed by the singer and bearing the name of his 1974 album Planet Waves.

"I tried to make a wine that reflects both sides of his character," said Antonio Terni, a lifelong Dylan fan who owns a vineyard near Ancona. "Angular, difficult and unpredictable like Montepulciano, yet generous and friendly like Merlot."

On the label is a suitably inscrutable disquisition on causes and effects which ends with the words: "What pushed two guys from opposite corners of the world to put their names on a bottle of Italian red wine? Destiny? Fate? Coincidence? Planet Waves."

Their joint venture began in November when Mr Terni, who spends his holidays going to wherever Dylan is performing, met his drummer at a party in Milan. He took advantage of the meeting to send his idol a bottle of a wine he had produced called "Visions of J", after the Dylan song Visions of Johanna.

"I got back an email from his manager asking if I could do something to help him become more involved in wine," Mr Terni said. The singer has been sent samples of the new wine to approve. His only return would seem to be some free bottles.

The wine, a 2002 vintage, will retail at around £35. This may help to explain a characteristically abstruse part of Dylan's All Along the Watchtower: "Businessmen, they drink my wine, ploughmen dig my earth, None of them along the line know what any of it is worth."

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: GUEST,Good Guest
Date: 02 Apr 04 - 05:40 PM

Signed in as Shania Twain or Sheryl Crow, maybe... Oh, you were talking about brucie, not me.

You say sophomoric like it's a bad thing. Why not lighten the mood?

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 02 Apr 04 - 05:36 PM

I've cancelled dinner this Sunday. I was going to have guests but now I've changed my mind.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: Peace
Date: 02 Apr 04 - 05:31 PM

sophOmoric you twit.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: Peace
Date: 02 Apr 04 - 05:28 PM

Strick always sign his/her name, so I wondered. Now I know.:D

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan for Victoria's Secret
From: GUEST,Jolly Good Guest
Date: 02 Apr 04 - 05:27 PM

Don't worry Good Guest. brucie is just feeling sheepish over his sophmoric behavior logging in as Guest Victoria, Guest Brittany, et al so he wants some company from another member posting anonymously in hopes of it making him look less like an idiot.