Final Word from Monday, October 11, 2004
In his autobiography, "Chronicles, Vol. One," Bob Dylan rejects the cliché that he was the spokesman of a generation. He says he had "very little in common with, and knew even less about, the generation (he) was supposed to be the voice of." One theory is that Dylan has again caught the zeitgeist and is helping to dismantle the celebrity culture. Literary critic Clive James said that the celebrity culture has gone too far and is wrecking lives. In the CR, the media have created celebrities and are now cutting them down to size. Blesk has recently run smearing articles about sports heroes Jaromír Jágr, Milan Baroš and Pavel Nedvěd. Perhaps this sells newspapers, but Dylan suggests another motive. In 1965, he wrote "Positively 4th Street," a blistering comment on envy: "Now I know you're dissatisfied/With your position and your place/Don't you understand/It's not my problem." He could have been singing to envious Czech journalists. Volume