Saturday, June 26, 2010

Younger Than Bob Dylan



Thanks to boatinsurance.org for including Proper Course on their recent post 48 Beginners Boating Sites and Tips Pages. But no thanks for the tag they put against the Proper Course link: From a sailor in his 60's.

Come on people at boatinsurance.org! Nobody is going to be motivated by that tag to click on my link. Who wants to read some boring old blog "from a sailor in his 60's"? Especially when the other choices are blogs with such tantalizing descriptions as "A man finds a small boat and uses it for circumnavigation" or "A captain sails the Northwest Passage alone." Even my blogging friend Adam has a good positive plug for his "whimsical nautical blog."

From a sailor in his 60's!!! Is that the kindest thing they could find to say about Proper Course? No mention of my epic tales of world-championship Laser racing. No credit for my talent at self-deprecating humor. Not a word about my zany coverage of monster truck videos and synchronized swimming goldfish.

Why do I bother?

I suppose I only have myself to blame. This whole "Cheat the nursing home. Die on your LASER" ethos kind of draws attention to my age. Not to mention that in my description of myself in the sidebar I start off by mentioning that I am a grandfather and am over 60.

But I don't particularly want this blog to be defined solely by my age. I am more than the number of years that I happen to have inhabited this planet.

Perhaps I need to change those age-related signals that are so prominent on the blog? No more "cheat the nursing home." No more grandfather talk.

Wait. Maybe I should go the whole hog and rewrite that whole mini-biography. Why mention that I am a Laser sailor at all? It only invites readers like Sir Puffing Pecan, or whatever his name is, to have a go at me when every single post isn't about Laser sailing. Apparently he wants more posts about "vang tension" of all things. Get a life Sir. It is what it is.

I could turn this into a more general outdoors activities blog. Or a tree-hugging environmentalist natural food freak blog. Or an advice blog on how to be an active baby boomer in early retirement full of investment advice and health tips. Then I could monetize it with adverts for high fee variable annuities and products to treat erectile dysfunction. Not that I have any problems in that department of course. No wait, that's getting back to the age thing again.

Do other bloggers have this problem? Do you write a "mission statement" for what you want to blog about and then find that you have actually walled yourself in to writing about one narrow slice of the multi-ingredient pizza that is really your life?

Do "real" writers suffer from the same issue of being boxed into one particular genre? Did Arthur C. Clarke ever get sick of writing science fiction and long to churn our some trashy romantic novels? Did Tolstoy want to try his hand at limericks? We'll never know.

Of course, fans get upset when an artist switches gears like that. Bob Dylan's fans booed him when he "went electric" at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 because Dylan was a folk singer and "folk" was acoustic. It just was. Well it was until Bob decided it wasn't. It is what it wasn't.

So, having arrogantly compared myself to Clarke, Dylan and Tolstoy, where do I go from here?

I have no idea.

But I am younger than Bob Dylan. So there.

18 comments:

Pandabonium said...

EVERYONE is younger than Dylan.

Well I'm living in a foreign country but I'm bound to cross the line
Beauty walks a razor's edge someday I'll make it mine
If I could only turn back the clock to when God and her were born
"Come in" she said
"I'll give you shelter from the storm".

Tillerman said...

"EVERYONE is younger than Dylan"?

Not true. Joan Baez is older than Bob Dylan. Judy Collins is older than Bob Dylan. Mary Travers (of Peter, Paul and Mary) is older than Bob Dylan.

No wait, Mary's dead. I think.

Baydog said...

Don't go changing, to try and please me
You never let me down before
Don't imagine you're too familiar
And I don't see you anymore
I wouldn't leave you in times of trouble
We never could have come this far
I took the good times, I'll take the bad times
I'll take you just the way you are

O Docker said...

Jibes and tacks and dolly wheels,
the silly capsized way you feel
As every downwind leg comes real
You’ve looked at blogs that way.

But now it’s just another show.
you leave ’em laughing when you go
And if you Google, don’t let them know,
don’t give yourself away.

I've looked at blogs from both sides now,
From read and write, and still somehow
It’s blog illusions I recall.
I really don’t know blogs at all.

Tillerman said...

Panda seems to have started an impromptu group writing project...

Who's next?

Baydog said...

I can't take credit for that one. I guess I have some work to do...after the soccer match.

JP said...

Yup, let Dylan be you guide and let the blog be what you want it.

It can always evolve and change - hence avoiding lawyers from nursing homes saying you're bad for business.

Pat said...

Mary's dead.
Go sailing.

Antolin said...

hey..any ink is good ink...I wish my budding blog would reach more people. I am all about my laser sailing activities, my wannabe pottery (I actually sell pots) and my second career as a yacht broker (I wish I could sell even more boats). So Timonel, enjoy the ink, keep cheating the nursing home, don't die any time soon, there are grandchildren to teach sailing and refuse to yield....after all if I claim to be 16 years old...you could claim to be under 18.
be well
Antolin

Pandabonium said...

No writing project. I'm too lazy for that...I was just quoting a Dylan song - "Shelter From The Storm" (1975)

Tillerman said...

Yeah. Know it well Panda. In the days of cassette tapes I used to have a live version of Shelter from the Storm on my tape of "songs to psych me up while driving to sailing."

I just appreciated the efforts by several readers to find a song verse (modified or not) that responded to the post in some way.

Frankie Perussault said...

In the 60's I was in Australia and was fed with music by Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Peter Paul and Mary... To learn that everyone is younger than Bob Dylan and that Mary is dead now is a total shock. My god, what happened to those years in between?!

Tillerman said...

What happened to those years in between?

Nothing much...

The 70s had Elton John.
The 80s had Duran Duran.
The 90s had the Spice Girls.
And the 00s had Eminem.

You didn't miss anything Frankie.

PeconicPuffin said...

He was so much older then. I'm younger than that now.

Mary Travers R.I.P. PBS ran a wonderful documentary earlier this year with spectacular footage of Mary, Peter and Paul.

doryman said...

Don't think twice, it's alright

Geoff said...

If you were still in England you could sue them for ageism, nothing like a good ism for suing with

Washburn D6s said...

It's alright ma....I'm only bleeding

Sandy said...

Sailing around the world in a dirty gondola
Oh, to be back in the land of Coca-Cola!

When I Paint My Masterpiece


In his autobiography "Chronicles" BD writes

"My sixty-three foot sailboat had hit a reef in Panama...In the ten years I had her my family and I had sailed the entire Caribbean and spent time on every island from Martinique to Barbados."

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