Like Being on Tour
This is Gonzo journalism at its best. This book follows the author as he joins Bob Dylan and his fellow musicians as they hit the country on the now-legendary and innovative Rolling Thunder Revue tour. Having been there at the inception of the tour and asked by Dylan to join them to write a book about it, Ratso rallies his editors for funds and transportation. Throughout the first part of the book, he tries desperately to get inside the tour but is thwarted every step of the way. He is, after all, a journalist. And most of these performers want nothing to do with any journalist, no matter how fun they think he is to hang with or how often he sets them up with drugs and other forms of entertainment. He evens helps scout locations for and unusual people to act in Dylan’s movie. This is why he earns the nickname “Ratso,” after Dustin Hoffman’s character in Midnight Cowboy. It takes some time, but finally he breaks through and manages to convince Dylan to grant him access to the performers…as long as he doesn’t hound them or make them uncomfortable. Things only get crazier from then on out. Aside from the Gonzo approach to writing this book, I particularly enjoyed how Ratso made an interesting perspective switch partway through. As he struggles to get inside the tour, he refers to himself in first person. Once granted access, the perspective switches on a dime to third person. He is now, after all, a part of the tour. Also enjoyable for me is how Ratso doesn’t sugar coat anything, gives us the situations as they happened, the dialogue as spoken. For more politically correct-minded listeners, this may be a problem. The language is authentic to the time, which was often rife with misogynistic and racist overtones. It left me wondering how different the book would have been had it been written today. I laughed so hard, so often throughout this book. Ramiz’s narration of this book added to the hilarity and was par excellence, as he provided terrific voicing of many iconic people. Having seen videos of Ratso speaking, I think Ramiz did any especially good job with the writer: frantic, gruff, crass, and distinctly NYC area sounding. I imagine that listening to this book is the next best thing to having been on tour with the Rolling Thunder Revue.