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RE: DYLAN, MIKE, BOZ, JEWELS AND BINOCULARS, ETC.
 
Hiya kids
 
I did an interview with this guy Andy Greene that appeared in the recent issue of Rolling Stone. You know, the one where they thought it was cool to put the mass killer on the cover. Theres been a little confusion about some things I said (or didnt say) so Id like to clarify.
 
The interview was supposed to be about drumming up business for Steely Dans summer tour. Walter Becker and I were originally scheduled to do the interview together on the phone, but it got botched up and we ended up talking to Greene separately.
 
For a while, it was a typical promo-type phone interview of the sort Ive been doing for forty years. Greene was asking questions that fans might ask and I was answering as best I could.
 
He asked about set lists. Because most of the audience is there to hear the popular favorites, Walter and I like to make sure there are a fair number of hits in the show at least the ones that arent too cringe-worthy. Then we talked about how some artists seem immune to audiences expectations. Greene brought up Bob Dylan. Because I could tell that Greene loved Dylan as much as I did, I let down my guard, and we started in with the classic fan talk, picking apart his recent work and mourning the fact that his erstwhile astonishing voice has now been reduced to a croak.
 
For Dylan idolaters, Bob analysis is a real party. We try to mimic his many eccentric vocal styles folky Bob, psychedelic Bob, post-motorcycle accident Bob, Jesus-freak Bob its fun. In college, we played a Dylan lyrics game:
 
Name two items that hung from the head of the mule.
 
Oh cmon, thats easy. Jewels and binoculars, of course.
 
For a moment, forgetting I was talking to a reporter, I started joking about the recent albums that always seem to have several, long blues-based tunes in minor keys. The lyrics are always great, but the tunes have limited musical interest, perhaps because Dylan needs to accommodate his damaged voice. Because Bob has meant so much to us for so long, because hes astonished us for so long, maybe we feel we can kid him as if he were family.
 
Big mistake, as you will soon see.
 
And it got worse. Greene had read the galleys of a book I wrote, Eminent Hipsters, a collection of pieces Ive written over the years thats coming out in October. The most recent is a journal I kept during last summers Dukes of September tour. The Dukes are Michael McDonald, Boz Scaggs and myself singing some of the R&B and soul tunes we grew up with, plus some of our individual radio hits.
 
The piece is an entirely subjective, jokey view of what its like to be on tour. I talk about the stress of doing one-nighters in your sixties, living on buses and in hotel rooms, moving around the country in a state of perpetual exhaustion. I get upset about the lukewarm audience response for the great old tunes we love and fantasize taking out my rage on the crowd. Its that sort of thing. I also confess my worries about taking prescribed pain-killers for the various aches and pains of aging. Theres almost no personal information about my friends Mike or Boz in the piece.
 
Greene said he enjoyed the piece and we talked about it for a bit. Mike and Boz never even came up.
Nevertheless, the next day, on a bunch of tabloid sites, I see this:
 
Donald Fagen blasts boring Dylan, McDonald & Scaggs
 
Cranky Steely Dan star Donald Fagen has blasted Bob Dylan and his Dukes of September tourmates Michael Mcdonald and Boz Scaggs in a new Rolling Stone magazine article.The 65-year-old rocker reveals he has walked out of several Dylan shows because he finds the folk-rock icon "tedious" and admits he took "certain pharmaceuticals" to help him relieve the boredom of touring with Scaggs and McDonald.
 
Keep your powder dry, yall.
 
DF
July 20 13