Bob Drops In to Reverend Ike's Place

Bob Dylan has probably played at stranger venues than the United Palace in the Ft. Washington area of far north Manhattan, but at the moment I cannot think of one and I certainly have never been in one.

The theater used to be one of the grand old movie theaters that abounded in the US up through the fifties and sixties. Now, of course, they are almost entirely gone and at some point in the past the Palace was acquired by Reverend Ike,who -- I see from Wikipedia -- had an enormously successful radio ministry in the 70's and went to his final reward in July this year. The Rev gave the old theater a complete makeover featuring a huge organ, enough gild to cover Broadway from Ft. Washington down to about Wall Street, and some heavily Moorish design touches. Prominently displayed high above the entrance lobby are some of Ike's personal aphorisms, including "Life takes from the taker and gives to the giver," "It's nice to be important, but more important to be nice," and, my personal favorite, "There is nothing so bad as a good excuse. The better the excuse the worse it is."

Anyhow, at some point, Ike and/or his business advisers apparently began leasing out the Palace for concerts. Beck and Arcade Fire are among those who have turned up there. The three nights in November, his last concerts of 2009 in The Neverending Tour, were Bob's second stop -- at least -- in the Palace. Perhaps it is a talisman to him, like his Academy Award that is always onstage every time Bob performs. (These nights it had been placed very visibly on an amp at stage front to Bob's left.) My friend Julieta says the traveling Oscar is Bob making an ironic statement. I'll stick with talisman. After all, this is the guy who was shaped by Gorgeous George and Bobby Vee! Not to mention Must Be Santa as a polks, which I just did.

I was at two of the three concerts, the first -- with my wife -- unfortunately featured muddied sound (although that may have been due to our seats far right only six rows from the stage) and a disappointing setlist that included three songs I wish Bob would permanently drop -- the inane Cat's in the Well, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, and John Brown, with its tale of the hideously but ludicously maimed war veteran coming home that reminds me of nothing so much as the knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, who continues feisty even as his body parts are lopped off one by one.

But night two, with my son, sublime...a few rows further back, but dead center so the band and Bob's vocals both came through clear and probably the best set list I've heard from Bob including Stuck Inside of Mobile, Man in the Long Black Coat, High Water, Most Likely You'll Go Your Way, and the beautiful new Forgetful Heart. Plus beer in the lobby after the concert was discounted to a keg clearing $2 a glass. We soaked in Ike's wisdom and said to a woman my age and her companion, who were coming back for night three, "tonight was much better than last night." "Oh, no," they replied, "last night was so much better." There you go, as always, Bob's found in the eye of the beholder.

Inquiring Minds Want to Know

So why is it that Christmas tree vendors set up shop about every two blocks in Manhattan? My son-in-law's answer: that's about as far as carless New Yorkers can drag their fresh tree back to their apartment. Sounds good to me.

The Hallmark Christmas Channel in a Mexican Bar Restaurant

Who knew? There is actually someone living in New York who walks into a Mexican bar restaurant, looking a bit like George from the Seinfeld show, who asks for bread with his order, is amazed when they don't have it, only tortillas, who asks for the TV remote and pilots it away from the last 30 seconds of Wisconsin-Duke, Wisconsin by 2 and all the FIFA news of the coming World Cup draw, and gives us instead the Christmas tree lighting at Rockefeller Center as reported on News at 11, and then searches painstakingly until he finds the Hallmark Christmas channel and some movie with the one-time world's prettiest boy, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, my son said, (one-time prettiest only because he looked a bit like Timothy Hutton in Ordinary People) dressed in a Santa's helper costume and needing to get his huge dog somewhere by air, so he flies in the kennel through storm-tossed skies with him. I think it would have been bizarre even if my fever didn't feel like 102. Do such people exist in New York? When will I learn that all garden and exotic variety of people exist in New York? Then he proceeded to block the entrance talking on his cell phone when I wanted to leave, get home, walk my little dog, and -- bliss -- get into bed and cover myself with about 17 layers of blankets. Oh, btw, Wisconsin 73, Duke 69 -- yes!

A Cell Phone Time Check

So it was a brilliant evening with my son, dinner at Le Relais de Venise L'Entrecote on Lex Ave and 52nd. One menu item, entrecote steak (you get it four ways -- blue, rare, medium and well, none of this medium rare, medium well over-tuning), frites, green salade with walnuts to start, house wine, and desserts including creme brulee. The waitress, for they are all women and all dressed in black with a little white smock trim, serves you seconds on the meat, heaps on the fries -- fully understanding that life's too short for lukewarm French fries -- and drops by from time to time to see how you are doing, but otherwise let's you have at it. All this -- if you skip wine and dessert -- for just under $25 per person. Crazy prices for New York. And then on the 6 train down to Astor Place and Webster Hall for The Mountain Goats, full band this time behind the chief Goat, John Darnielle, who looks -- in his glasses and short haircut -- like Buddy Holly on speed, but of course Buddy Holly would be on speed today, who can play like a heavy metal wannabe and who writes lyrics that few others his age can even approach. Not to overquote myself but it's past 1 AM and I can't think new thoughts -- here's an excerpt from my Amazon review of his maybe best CD The Sunset Tree: "He sings here of life with an abusive stepfather, a subject not exactly made for easy listening, but The Sunset Tree, a humane and sympathetic freeing from a sad past, is not bitter, achieves strength and -- particularly in Song for Dennis Brown -- addresses some universal and inescapable experiences. This might sound like dreary medicine to take, but instead there is a cheerful, pop (N.B. In concert the pop ramps up to loud rock) edge to some of the music, most notably in Dance Music and This Year. A greater reason, though, is Darnielle's own storytelling -- his stepfather sounds like a monster, but he is not denied his own humanity ("you are sleeping off your demons") and Darnielle even manages -- on hearing of the man's death -- to recall a fragile good memory, going together in an early morning years previously to watch horses work out. It helps too that in this history Darnielle recogizes his own teenaged self as not exactly perfect, describing himself and a girlfriend as 'twin high-maintenance machines.'"

This was the best of the three MG concerts I've seen here in New York, but still, in the encore set, I sneaked a look at my cell phone saw it was 11:26 and said to myself, "by 1 I'll be in bed." The years. Or as Indy said in Raiders, "it's not the years, honey, it's the mileage." One or the other, things add up and wear you down.