What’s the thing to write about today? Is there anything? Does there have to be? Isn’t the idea, sometimes, just to type? Yes, to a point, but not when actually writing. You have to have something to say. Think of young Bob Dylan, sitting there in the Village, in front of a crappy old typewriter, cigarette dangling from his puffy little chapped lips. He’s upstairs, above the music store, surrounded by must and dust and hundreds of old books. His hair is wild and dirty. His nails are bitten and raw. He wears no colors, really, but grey, brown and black. And blue jeans so filthy we’ll count them as grey. He’s young, and hunched, and on his third smoke, but he sits there quietly, like Kafka instructed, and waits for the Universe to come to him. And it does.

His fingers start to fly. He’s hearing lyrics in his head. They seem to be flowing in at two points, one on each side of his head. One highway into the right hemisphere, the other into the left. Above the ear, about halfway between the top of the ear and his crown. At those two points, his head buzzes a bit. Almost like he’s hooked up to two gentle electrodes. He’s what they call “touched.” He’s touched, and he likes it. It’s what he’s been waiting for.

The words pour in quickly. Jesus, he didn’t even know he wanted to write about this today. He thought he’d write about the war, and instead he’s going on and on about himself. Where he is, what he’s doing, who he hates, who hates him, and how it’s all okay, mom, it’s life and life only. And it gets bigger. He’s writing about the slippery nature of truth and flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark and how it’s easy to see without lookin too hard that not much is really sacred.

And he’s writing about people he knows and many he doesn’t, and it’s all true. It’s true as all hell, and he knows it, because The Voice is telling him. The words flow like creeks into the Mississippi. So he writes about the river. THE river. And he writes about travel and he writes about where he is and where he wants to be and where others want HIM to be and how, when it all comes right down to it, honey, how come you don’t MOVE?

I mean, really? Honey, are you kidding me? This place is awful. You dad’s a fake tyrant, you’re mother’s a chickenshit drunk, Uncle Sam’s a bellicose crook, etc., etc. That’s a subject for another time. Bob gets out of the way and takes himself out of the equation and let’s the words – the whole idea – come through him. He steps aside and lets the river flow from wherever, through his horns and out his fingers. He didn’t even know he had this in him. He’s not concerned if it’s good or not, he just knows it’s true, and it’s coming from someplace else. Is it where dreams come from, or the magic words he hears early in the morning (or afternoon) when he wakes up? Whatever it is, it seems like magic, and it’s transformed a skinny Jewish kid with bad teeth into a stud in just a few weeks. It’s like magic.

Here he is, in the hippest neighborhood in the hippest city in the world and he’s been touched. His songs are true, and he’s getting gigs. How in the world? He’s had help, and he knows it. But here’s the thing: he was ready to receive it. He received it. Not everyone does that. He sat, and listened and waited and was ready. He even bought typing paper, with his own money. He was ready to roll. He took dictation, is what it boiled down to. He sat down, got out of the way, and took dictation. And what came through? Genius. Truth. Some of the best songs written, ever.

Even better than Robert Johnson, who, while writing the hell out of a guitar melody, and layering it with a series of filigreed flourishes unknown since the baroque era (but so, so much funkier, Jim), didn’t really hit the lyrics as well as you might have hoped. “A womern’s lahk a dresser, some man always ramlin throo her drawers” (repeat, and repeat, and REPEAT). “Hot tamales and they red hot! Yes, she got em on sale!” (repeat, repeat). Not the hardest-hitting stuff ever, but what can you do. The music kills, Bobby baby, the music just KILLS.

Robert Johnson and Robert Zimmerman. Zimmerman. “Room-man?” Isn’t that what zimmer means? Room? I’ll have to look that up.

But, see, when we put ourselves into the equation, we’re not getting the flow from outside, or through the horns on our heads or whatever. We’re thinking about ourselves. We’re becoming self-conscious.

Take thyself out of the equation, schmuck. Step aside, chum, and let mommy bring the words. We’re going to write about something more than ourselves today, okay? we’re going to write about EVERYTHING, so just sit there, by the keyboard, be quiet, open the horns, and let the flow begin. Here it comes. Feel the tingle? That’s right… Wait for it…. WAIT for it…. annnnnnnd….

GO.