strolling bones

Spent much of the weekend reading the Greil Marcus book about Like A Rolling Stone and listening to some of the music it's about. Took a break Saturday to meet with an old friend from NZ who was in Sydney to farewell his daughter, off to Europe. Neil's a bass player, an old Red Moler like me. He told me a Dylan story: a friend of his worked on the road crew of The Never Ending Tour for three years. He was told at the beginning to stay out of Bob's way so he did. One day about eighteen months into the gig, backstage he was doing what he was doing when he happened to pass by Bob, just hanging out. Bob said: Hi, I'm Bob. You're doing a good job there. This brief encounter was followed by another eighteen month's silence ... anyway, came home to a telling bone call from another old friend raving about the new Rolling Stones album. Best since Exile on Main Street he said, in the youthful tones of one for whom no time has passed. And I thought, playing yet again a wonderful soul version (don't know yet who by?) of Gotta Serve Somebody off the sound track to Masked and Anonymous, yep, and how lucky are we to have these particular bones to stroll along with?