Tangled Up In Blue

We always did feel the same,
We just saw it from a different point of view,
Tangled up in blue.
Bob Dylan, from “Blood on the Tracks”

Retired crime photographer Dick Wylie donated his self-published book “Life and death Thru the Lens” to the Archives. His father was a Gary patrolman during the 1930s and Forties, and at age 16 Dick started taking photographs for the Post-Tribune. As he put it, “While most of my high school classmates were enjoying beer parties, dangerous pranks and fast cars, I was photographing grotesquely twisted bodies of other teens, their lives ended suddenly. His photo of a trapped truck driver made the AP wire, a really big deal in those days. One of his photos appeared in Life magazine when he was 20. It’s a really gruesome book; one chapter is called, “Hurry, Dick, Her Head’s About to Fall Off.” He does include some great photos of celebrities visiting Northwest Indiana, including Ike, JFK, RFK, LBJ, and Senator Paul Douglas at the Indiana Dunes, which he helped preserve. There’s also a page devoted to shots of John Baratto, who overcame polio and became an East Chicago Washington basketball coaching legend.

Heard Dylan’s 1975 classic “Tangled Up in Blue.” He makes reference to a woman reading lines from a thirteenth century Italian poet. People have speculated that he meant Dante or maybe Petrarch, who wrote “Love Sonnets” in the fourteenth century. On tour during his religious period Dylan substituted Biblical verses. He told an interviewer he was referring to Plutarch, a Greek who lived more than a thousand years before the 1200s. WFYR’s “Ten at Ten” focused on 1965, when the cross-fertilization of the Byrds and Beatles produced the jingle-jangle sound of “Mr. Tambourine Man.” Dylan, going electric, moved from finger-pointing folk to more introspective Beat-influenced lyrics. And let’s not forget Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You Babe” and Bobby Fuller’s “I Fought the Law.”

I told Suzanna about “Maria’s Journey,” the book by Ray and Trish Arredondo that I edited. I am waiting breathlessly for an advance copy. The Mexican-American matriarch endured an incredibly hard life and reared a remarkable brood of 11 children that included a union president, school principal, sports star, judge, county sheriff, and other leading lights. Suzanna replied, “My all time favorite film is El Norte about two young people fleeing Guatemala and the persecution they suffered there as part of the Indian population going through Mexico to travel to "The North" expecting a paradise and finding.... It was just heart rendering. I will never forget it. All these narrow minded anti immigrant bigots should see it but maybe nothing will change those people’s hearts.”

The Michiganders returned home from their “Annie” weekend, to discover that vandals had wrecked their outdoor basketball post and net. Why would someone do such a thing? In the news: fired from his job at a liquor distributorship for stealing beer, a guy in Connecticut killed eight and wounded several other former co-workers. Before taking his own life, he called his mother to tell her to stop smoking. She’s probably a chain-smoker now thanks to his foul deed. Gun control anyone?

Went to see Steve Carroll in “Dinner for Schmucks,” a forgettable knock-off of a French farce. Angie made spring rolls for Dave’s forty-first birthday. Becca, who had an evening rehearsal, was wearing a Ramones t-shirt. Watched a “Curb Your Enthusiasm” where people keep barging in on others because there is no lock on the bathroom door. “Seinfeld” had a couple similar episodes involving George, including the famous “shrinkage” episode. Years ago at the beach in Saugatauk, Michigan, I went to use a portapotty and inside was a naked fat lady changing out of (or into) her bathing suit.