Bob Dyl(ignor)an(ce): The Artist's Oblivion
August 16 2009

Why would anyone take on an arts career?

It's highly competitive. Lots of aggression as you elbow for gigs and territory. Lots of rejection. Uncertainty. Endless hours. And the pay sucks. If there is any.

And yet.

The stock explanation: narcissistic arrogance and needy insecurity. Artists become professional because they hold so superior a view of their talents as to deem themselves entitled to universal attention; artists become professional because they hold so inferior a view of their talents as to believe themselves unable to survive without universal attention.

Maybe yes, maybe no. The Pianobabbler certainly teeters and totters between the grand and the grim when it comes to his own art.

But psych is not our theme today. The artist's reward is.

Whatever the reason for going into the professional arts, this much is clear: every artist wants acknowledgement. Whether it be for money, for love, or both, every artists wants people to know her or him. No artist goes into the business with obscurity as a goal.

What does the recent experience of Bob Dylan say about the artist's lot then?

In case you missed it: Bob Dylan was walking around Long Branch, New Jersey recently. A cop stopped him. She asked him who he was. Bob Dylan, said Bob Dylan. She didn't believe him. She all but arrested him. Her sergeant backed her up, while Dylan sat in the cop car, being told he was not Dylan.

Finally, one of the people on Dylan's tour persuaded the police Dylan really was Dylan. The Kafka was over.

How could this be? Bob Dylan. Bob for-blowing-in-the-wind-sake Dylan. One of the most celebrated artists on the planet. Unrecognized. May as well have been Mr. Cellophane.

All that work, all those years, putting out music, performing, remaining in the public eye. And the guy can't get recognized in Long Branch, New Jersey.

Did he waste his time? Would he have been better off making music in his basement, for pleasure, and becoming a neurosurgeon, or an advertising copywriter?

No. Of course not. He had the great fulfillment of the years, still ongoing, when most anyone would have recognized him.

What it does say though, is that artists have a transient presence. We all want our art to live on, and through our art, ourselves. Artists like Stephen Sondheim are being disingenuous when they claim to make art only for now, not caring if future generations celebrate it. Humbug.

But if Dylan can't live on, who can? Who will remember the Pianobabbler?

I'll be honest. I do worry about my music being more than transient argle bargle destined to slip quickly and (horror!) silently into the black hole of unmemoried time. I don't really worry about what esteem the future will accord me. I'm too worried about present esteem.

Still, the Pianobabbler shakes his head in reaction to the Dylan incident. Lesson: we should none of us get too caught up in renown and the vanity of recognition. We've chosen to make music, not for the money. Not for the adulation. Neither of these may ever come.

We've chosen music because we love it. In fact, so urgent is our wish to make music and share it, that it's more accurate to say music chose us, more than we it. We couldn't not do it.

So, to Constable Kristie Buble of the Long Branch, New Jersey police, I say: don;t worry. Feel free not to recognize me. Any time. Feel free to question whether I really am the Pianobabbler. Feel free to be skeptical about it.

That would make me about as famous as Bob Dylan.

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