Nerve Endings Firing Away

Are reporters really interested in opinions of the people they are interviewing or just looking to stir up a faux controversy? Check out an excerpt from an interview of Bob Dylan by Bill Flanagan in the Times (UK):

Bill Flanagan: What struck you about him?

Bob Dylan: Well, a number of things. He’s got an interesting background. He’s like a fictional character, but he’s real. First off, his mother was a Kansas girl. Never lived in Kansas though, but with deep roots. You know, like Kansas bloody Kansas. John Brown the insurrectionist. Jesse James and Quantrill. Bushwhackers, Guerillas. Wizard of Oz Kansas. I think Barack has Jefferson Davis back there in his ancestry someplace. And then his father. An African intellectual. Bantu, Masai, Griot type heritage – cattle raiders, lion killers. I mean it’s just so incongruous that these two people would meet and fall in love. You kind of get past that though. And then you’re into his story. Like an odyssey except in reverse.

BF: In what way?

BD: First of all, Barack is born in Hawaii. Most of us think of Hawaii as paradise — so I guess you could say that he was born in paradise.

BF: And he was thrown out of the garden (emphasis mine).

BD: Not exactly. His mom married some other guy named Lolo and then took Barack to Indonesia to live. Barack went to both a Muslim school and a Catholic school. His mom used to get up at 4:00 in the morning and teach him book lessons three hours before he even went to school. And then she would go to work. That tells you the type of woman she was. That’s just in the beginning of the story.

Note the emphasis. Where did that come from? Bob Dylan in his own whimsical style is offering his opinions on Obama as an interesting character and Flanagan wants to throw some random line about him being “thrown out of the garden”. Any biblical implications here, Flanagan to mock Dylan on his born-again trip or merely making an overstretched connection to Dylan’s In the Garden? Bob Dylan smartly avoids the trap. I guess, anyone who leaves hi birthplace has in effect been thrown out. I’m sure 90% or even more of this blog’s readers fall in that category, right? On the other hand, it has been a slow news day.