[I’m not sure anyone as yet has a handle on Bob Dylan, but he is funny.  He has always proved a frustrating person to interview, as some of the below exchanges make clear!  I always have a sense that he did not take himself nearly so seriously as everyone else.]

Q: Tell us about your movie.

BD:  It’s gonna be in black and white.

Q:  Will it be in the Andy Warhol Style?

BD:  Who’s Andy Warhol?  Listen, my movie will be – I can say definitely – it will be in the style of the early Puerto Rican films.

Q:  Who’s writing it?

BD:  Allen Ginsburg. I’m gonna rewrite it.

Q:  What do you think of your teenage fans?

BD:  What do you mean when you say “teenager”?  I don’t know what you mean.  I have no picture of a teenager in my mind.  Name me a teenager. I have no recollection of ever being a teenager.

Q:  What do you think of the new folk music?

BD:  Everyone sounds incompetent.

Q:  What do you think of the new Bob Dylan?

BD:  What’s your name?

Q:  Dave Moberg.

BD:  Okay.  What would you think if someone asked you, What do you think of the new Dave Moberg?  What new Dave Moberg?

Q:  You must obviously make a lot of money nowadays?

BD:  I spend it all.  I have six Cadillacs. I have four houses. I have a plantation in

Georgia

. Oh, I’m also working on a rocket.  A little rocket.  Not a big rocket.  Not the kind of rocket they have at

Cape Canaveral

.  I don’t know about those kinds of rockets.

Q:  What kind of people do you take an instant dislike to?

BD:  I take an instant dislike to people who shake a lot.  An instant dislike – wham!  Most of the time I throw them against the wall.  I have a bodyguard, Toppo. . . TOPPO! Is Toppo in there?  I have a bodyguard to get rid of people like that. He comes out and wipes them out. He wiped out three people last week.

Q:  Why do some of your songs bear no relation to their titles?

BD:  Give me an example.

Q:  “Rainy Day Women No. 12 & 35.”

BD:  Have you ever been to

North Mexico

for six straight months?

Q:  Not recently.

BD:  Well, I can’t explain it to you then.  If you had, you’d understand what the song’s about.

Q:  Do you have any children?

BD:  Every man with medical problems has children.

Q:  What are your medical problems?

BD:  Well, there’s glass in the back of my head.  I’m a very sick person.  I can’t see too well on Tuesdays.  These dark glasses are prescribed.  I’m not trying to be a beatnik.  I have very mercuryesque eyes.  And another thing – my toenails don’t fit.