After five months, Bob Dylan will finally get around to accepting his Nobel Prize.

Not like it's one of the biggest awards a human being can be bestowed with in life--no rush--but five months after being announced as the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, Bob Dylan will finally get around to accepting his award.

Not to go out of his way, Dylan will be in Stockholm, Sweden, playing two concerts, and figures then will be as good as any to grab the award.

To receive his prize money, though, Dylan must give a lecture--which is not expected to be done in person. Instead, Dylan is expected--if at all--to give a lecture via recording at a later date.

And the reason they couldn't just give this to Paul Simon instead was...?

Bob Dylan didn't show up to accept his Nobel Prize in Literature because--I don't know--he's a busy man?

He didn't show up because Bob Dylan has been, is, and always will be about creating a fictionalized mystique around himself.

When Dylan was announced as the 2016 Nobel Laureate in Literature, he refused for two weeks to respond to the Swedish Academy's attempts at contacting him. His reasoning? "I was out on the road when I received this surprising news, and it took me more than a few minutes to properly process it."

A few? Apparently it took Dylan 20,160 minutes to process it--the amount in two weeks--before the synapses in his brain could wrap around the idea that a plagiarist could become a Nobel winner.

Fast forward to the award ceremony, and Dylan was a no show. In his stead, fellow folk singer Patti Smith sang Dylan's "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall," and the American ambassador to Sweden read Dylan's prepared speech.

The Atlantic nearly fainted in excitement in their coverage of Dylan's speech, calling it--among many things--"subversively humble." But the real pearl from The Atlantic might be this nugget:

"It’s not that he doesn’t want to question whether his songs are literature, it’s that he hasn’t had the time."

It seems Bob Dylan is burning the candle at both ends 24/7/365, so much so that the poor man truly can't even think. Why aren't we staging an intervention to save this brave man's life from self-destruction? HE CAN'T EVEN PROCESS THOUGHT.

The Atlantic continues, writing about Patti Smith's singing at the banquet:

"She delivered an aching rendition of his song “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” during which she forgot the words to the second verse and had to start again—a mistake that only heightened the lyrics’ mystery and power."

The song is so powerful, even Dylan's great friend couldn't remember the lyrics. Do you want to take a crack at singing this life-altering, classic, American song off the top of your head? Go ahead. I'll wait. [[[[[waits an hour]]]]] You don't know the powerful lyrics, do you? They might be so powerful, they make it impossible to think. Bob Dylan can alter space and time.

If you're a masochist and want to read the text to Dylan's speech, you can find it elsewhere, but not here.

Odds are in a few years we'll find out he cribbed half the speech from a Zimbabwean children's book and the musings of a politician in ancient Estonia. That's the true Bob Dylan way.

Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Bob Dylan was announced as the winner of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature.

And Bob Dylan is a plagiarist.

The Swedish Academy, which votes on the prize, can make their reasons and rationales. They can call Dylan a "great poet in the English-speaking tradition," and suggest Dylan "created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition."

But Dylan isn't a poet. He's a cult of personality, a creation solely conjured up to captivate the gullible, and a plagiarist who has repeatedly stolen lines and passages from obscure writers and passed it off as his own work.

There was the story in 2003 of Dylan being accused of stealing passages from Japanese writer Junichi Saga's novel Confessions of a Yakuza.

There were allusions in 2006 of Dylan using words, phrasing, and imagery of the relatively obscure American Civil War poet Henry Timrod.

In 2009, people noticed that Dylan's 2004 memoir seemed to borrow heavily from vintage editions of Time Magazine.

There were even questions in 2011 if Dylan's original artwork in a show wasn't actually just direct copies of historical photographs.

There have been other accusations as well--and not all believe Dylan is the stunningly skilled writer the Swedish Academy and his cult of followers believe him to be. His contemporary, Joni Mitchell, has repeatedly called Dylan out. In a 2010 interview, Mitchell let loose. "Bob is not authentic at all," she said. "He's a plagiarist and his name and voice are fake. Everything about Bob is a deception." In a 2013 interview with Uncut, Mitchell continued the feeling. When asked about calling Dylan a plagiarist, Mitchell said, "It's not like I outed him. He stole all of his lines out of a Japanese hoodlum's novel. There was a lawsuit impending, but it got dropped. He told me 'I haven't written a song in years.'"

There's the old, overused adage that good writers borrow; great writers steal, and by that very vague qualifier Dylan is worthy of the Nobel Prize.

By any other metric, by any other definition, by any sense of ethics, Dylan has succeeded only by piggybacking off the backs of people who spent many long days and longer nights trying to craft a beautiful line of poetry, a phrase that instills awe, a piece of art. Dylan is not an artist, he is not a writer, and he is not original.

The 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature doesn't belong to Bob Dylan, although he may claim it. The award belongs to obscure Civil War poets, and Japanese storytellers, and the long deceased writers of Time Magazine of years gone by.

Bob Dylan won't go away.

But what about an obscure Lithuanian poet?

The cult of Bob Dylan is a powerful entity, which explains the giant long-form piece in the New York Times and countless stories across news outlets about the folk hero's archive being bought by The Kaiser Foundation and put on display at the University of Tulsa.

Indeed, in their extensive story of his work, the Times refers to Dylan's "dozens of rewrites" of "even minor songs," how he was clearly "an obsessive self-editor in constant motion," and how this whole archive is the next step in the "canonization" of the musical legend. But the Times, like most media outlets and Dylan cultists, largely ignores his history of constant allegations of plagiarism.

Dylan has been accused of plagiarism so often he finally felt the need to speak out in 2012. Regarding accusations he stole lines of poetry from a book of obscure Japanese poetry, as well as an equally obscure American Confederate Civil War-era poet, Dylan told Rolling Stone Magazine the claims were made by "wussies and pussies," and, as Reuters noted in their own reporting, that "[to Dylan] musical appropriation is [as he says] 'part of the folk tradition.'" Moreover, Reuters noted Dylan said that in folk and jazz music "quotation is a rich and enriching tradition."

No. Quotation is what I just did there. I quoted Reuters, who was quoting Rolling Stone, who was quoting Dylan. That's how quoting works. Plagiarizing is when you simply take the work of others and pass it off as your own. It's a rich and enriching tradition of lazy writers who create a persona and piggyback off the work of others to create worldwide fame for themselves. Work like that of obscure Japanese poets. Work like obscure poets from 140-years ago. Plagiarizing happens to lazy writers.

Like Dylan.

Who shouldn't be canonized.

Follow the Swedish money: Apparently betting on the Nobel Prize in Literature is a thing.

If it's been said once, it's been said a thousand times: You're not a degenerate gambler until you play the long odds and throw some cash on Margaret Atwood winning a Nobel.

With the announcement of 2014's Nobel Prizes coming up in October, apparently one can lay some money on the outcome of who the next Laureate in Literature will be. And it's not just a recent phenomenon either. As Alex Donahue, spokesperson for Ladbrokes--the UK's leading gambling site--tells The Guardian, "We've been taking bets for this year from the day of the announcement last year," when Alice Monroe was announced as the Nobel winner.

Favorites to win aren't just randomly assigned odds. As Donahue states, it's all about how the Swedes are betting, as they have their fingers on the pulse of momentum. "It's always worth following the Swedish money and at this stage the one they like is Ngugi wa Thiong'o," said Donahue, referring to the famous Kenyan writer who was arrested in 1976 on orders by the country's vice president for creating uncensored political messages. Ngugi would end up writing one of his future novels, Caitaani mũtharaba-Inĩ (Devil on the Cross), on prison toilet paper while spending a year behind bars.

Ngugi might have momentum with a betting line at 6/1, but he still doesn't have the best odds. Those go to Haruki Murakami at 5/1. Others in the realm of potential include Joyce Carol Oates at 12/1, Philip Roth at 16/1, Thomas Pynchon at 25/1, Don Delillo at 25/1, and Margaret Atwood at 33/1. The likes of Salman Rushdie, Cormac McCarthy, and even that plagiarizing literary sage Bob Dylan bring up the betting odds rear at 50/1.

Dylan's odds, according to Donahue, are based off two bets that came in from Sweden.

Hell, if that's all it takes, I'll find two Swedish guys named Bjorn and Henrik to lay $5 on me and call myself a Nobel contender.

'How does it feel?' It feels like $2 million bucks for Bob Dylan lyrics.

The handwritten lyrics to Bob Dylan's 'Like a Rolling Stone' sold at a Sotheby's auction for a smidge over $2 million, setting a record for song lyrics, besting The Beatles' 'A Day in the Life,' which had previously sold for $1.2 million.

Dylan wrote the lyrics to the 1965 song on stationary from the Roger Smith Hotel in Washington, DC, and include words and phrases that never ended up in the final cut, including "Al Capone" and "dry vermouth, you'll tell the truth."

The song, which makes little sense lyrically except to rhyme various phrases like a kindergartner on a Sesame Street binge, was ranked as the #1 all-time song by Rolling Stone Magazine in 2010.




photo: Sotheby's, via Associated Press

Famous Writers Shirtless: Bob Dylan

A fleeting internet meme happened of writers in underpants--but it passed too quickly to be truly appreciated.

So, occasionally we'll post some literary beefcake for your perusal.

Today: Bob Dylan

Sure, he plagiarizes some of the songs he writes, but good writers don't borrow, they steal.

It's not often you get to see a grown man with the physique of a 12-year old boy do a belly flop.

I haven't seen that much boney flesh since last year's anemic Thanksgiving turkey.

Happy Election Day: Bob Dylan predicts today's election.

He mumbled that President Obama will win in a landslide. Because when Americans look for political punditry, we turn to the insight of Bob Dylan.

No word on whether Dylan plagiarized this prediction.

Amnesty International to release 76 Bob Dylan cover songs in honor of its own anniversary.

Good God. The world hasn't seen torture on poor people this bad since Kim Jong Il starved half his country to death.

Man arrested for singing Bob Dylan to his girlfriend.

Finally. Someone came to their senses.

Academics discuss plagiarism---I mean, sorry, Bob Dylan.

Bob Dylan might seem like he's half-asleep, but his fan base is pretty passionate (and awake).

That includes academics, law professors specifically, who are holding a conference about Bob Dylan's songs dealing with the law, according to the Associated Press. One professor, Bruce Green of Fordham University, says, "We think it's important once in awhile to have fun, and to free the scholarly imagination." If there's anything I like to see in academia, it's that people make sure fun only happens once in awhile. You wouldn't want anyone to enjoy their line of work all the time or anything.

But I digress. Back to Bob.

Abbe Smith, a Georgetown law professor, says that Bob Dylan songs, while "beautiful," played fast and loose with the facts of criminal cases. Professor Richard Underwood from the University of Kentucky College of Law says Dylan "was not necessarily concerned with true facts. He took a lot of poetic license."

Nooo. Not our Bob Dylan, plagiarist extraordinaire!



As an aside: shouldn't a professor know to avoid using "true facts" in a sentence? The great comedian/social critic George Carlin included "true facts" on his list of Favorite Redundancies from his book Brain Droppings. Those redundancies included "future plans," "lag behind," "join together," and "occasional irregularity." He included a giant list, which sometime soon I'll talk about on this blog, if only because he's more interesting than Bob Dylan. True fact!

I loved reruns of "Name That Tune" as a kid.

Let's play a little game of "Guess Who?" I'll write down some song lyrics, and you can guess what really horrible song writer wrote them.

The first lyrics are:
If I ever lose her I will go insane.
I go half crazy when she calls my name.
When she says babababababy I-I-I love you
There ain't nothing in the world I wouldn't do.

The same writer wrote this following little ditty:
If not for you
Babe, I couldn't find the door,
Couldn't even see the floor,
I'd be sad and blue
If not for you.

I know what you're thinking. Lindsay Lohan lyrics are as painful to read as they are to listen to. Except these lyrics aren't Lindsay Lohan song lyrics. Or Britney Spears. Or any modern pop singer. Nope.

They're Bob Dylan lyrics.

Maybe the reason Bob Dylan mumbles all the time is so people will always think he's a genius at writing. The mumble method can really be beneficial. Once, when I took a computer class, we were allowed to work in groups for a project. Each student had to fill out an individual worksheet, but you were all allowed to write an identical answer as the rest of your group mates. One kid in my group had chicken scratch for handwriting (the written version of mumbling) and received a 100 for a grade. My handwriting was entirely legible, and I received a 90. We wrote the exact same thing.

This is pretty much how Bob Dylan gets by in life. I don't know a single "expert" in the field of music who doesn't call Dylan a master at writing. Maybe the problem is that these are music experts and not writing experts? Take away the melody, the harmony, the music and he becomes a mumbling man who you'd cross the street to avoid if you saw him walking in Boston. Maybe packaging is all that matters. The scruffy look, the frazzled hair, the sheer inability to smile--it all makes Bob look like some starving artist, so he earns "cred, baby."

In a way, packaging is no different than what the Pussycat Dolls get by on. They can't sing, just like Bobby can't sing. They can't write lyrics, just like Bobby can't write lyrics. They're pre-packaged to make people enjoy them, like a Lean Cuisine frozen dinner. And because people enjoy the packaging of Bob, we're told he's good. (Maybe not quite Lean Cuisine for him. Bob seems more like a Hungry Jack frozen dinner.)

Here's one last gem from Bob:

I don't think I want this anymore
As she drops the ring to the floor.
She says to herself: 'You've left before.'
This time you will stay gone, that's for sure.

Awww, sorry. That's a Pussycat Dolls' lyric. I get them confused a lot with Bob Dylan these days.