Path: telepost.no!nntp-oslo.UNINETT.no!nntp-trd.UNINETT.no!newsfeed.sunet.se!news01.sunet.se!sunic!news99.sunet.se!erinews.ericsson.se!news.seinf.abb.se!news.norconnect.no!news.ece.uc.edu!babbage.ece.uc.edu!news.wildstar.net!imci5!imci4!newsfeed.internetmci.com!miwok!ultra.sonic.net!news From: catherine yronwode Newsgroups: rec.music.dylan Subject: Re: Desolation Row (loooooooong) Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 11:30:55 +0000 Organization: Lucky W Amulet Archives Lines: 56 Message-ID: <316CED6F.705F@sonic.net> References: <199604100317.XAA14338@use.usit.net> Reply-To: yronwode@sonic.net NNTP-Posting-Host: pm157.sonic.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.0 (Macintosh; I; 68K) Bob Stacy wrote: > > Catherine Yronwode writes: > >Probably my final thought on "Einstein disguised as Robin Hood": > >I now really think it is Phil Ochs. Ochs was Jewish, as was Einstein, > >but he got a nose job to look more Anglo, like Robin Hood --or Errol > >Flynn as Robin Hood. If it is Ochs, then i further think that the > >"Jealous monk" who accompanies him is a guy, whose name i cannot recall > >(because i lost my copy of that great biography of Ochs) who was > >wealthy, British, gay, and followed Ochs around, seemingly trying to > >convert him to homosexuality (read the book for more details). > > Interesting thought about Ochs as the "Einstein disguised as Robin Hood". > I'll need to ponder that one a bit more. But I wonder if the Englishman > "Jealous Monk" that you describe is not Andy Wickham? It's been ages since > I read this fascinating book ("Death of a Rebel - Starring Phil Ochs" by > Marc Eliot) but upon leafing back through it, I find numerous descriptions > of their rather odd relationship. Best of friends, inseparable, sometimes > disappearing together for days at a time. At one point, living together > with their respective ladies who were permitted to remain with them as long > as they "enhanced the friendship but were never allowed to challenge it." > Strange ain't the word. > > Unless there's some other Englishman lurking about (and there may well be if > it's much earlier in the book) but Wickham sure sounds like the guy about > whom you might be thinking. Trouble is, according to what's stated in the > book, Wickham and Ochs were placed first meeting in about May of 1967, after > Phil had signed with A&M Records and when he was in the midst of a > cross-country tour prior to making his first A&M recording. If so, then > that would make Wickham too late on the scene to be the Jealous Monk for > Ochs' Einstein in the 1965 Dylan epic. However, the book further confuses > matters by also placing Dylan at that first meeting: [snip] Wow! Great research, Bob -- thanks. I guess i overstated it in saying that Andrew Wickham was "gay" -- i should have said "bisexual." And you are correct, of course -- the book does give a 1967 meeting date for Ochs and Wickham, too late for the "jealous monk" to have been linked with an Ochs-as Einstein persona in the 1965 song "Desolation Row" -- but when i read the list of participants at the meeting and the place it occurred ("He was in The Dugout, on Bleecker, participating in a sparerib orgy with Eric Anderson, David Blue, Bobby Neuwirth, and Dylan, when Andy Wickham and P. F. Sloan came through the door...") it sure seems more like a 1965 event than a 1967 one...and, as you pointed out, the author was also several years off in captioning a picture of Dylan with an electric guitar as havoing been taken in "1963." I am not firmly stuck on "Einstein" as Phil Ochs -- and for now you seem to have called in evidence (admittedly questionable) that refutes this idea. It was interesting to think about, anyway... catherine yronwode -------------------- mailto:yronwode@sonic.net news:alt.lucky.w -- discussion of folkloric amulets and talismans LUCKY W Amulet Archive: http://www.sonic.net/yronwode/LuckyW.html