CALL IT WHAT YOU WANT

An article in the June/July 1976 Newsletter by Lloyd Timberlake described his adventures juggling for Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones. It inspired me to do some long overdue research into a rumor I had heard years ago ... that folksinger, rock star, mystic, poet, recluse and occasional counter-culture hero Bob Dylan was, is or could be somewhat interested in juggling.

Once sparked into action I was determined to find the truth but first I had to find Dylan. Not an easy task. I sent him postcards. Then letters. Next picture postcards. No response. Soon I was sending lacrosse balls. Dozens of them. White ones. Orange ones. No response. Weeks passed. Frustration set in. Had I involved myself in an impossible undertaking? I was beginning to doubt my entire existence. Finally, late one night I received a long-distance phone call. It was a wrong number. The next day a telegram arrived arranging an interview with the elusive Maar. Dylan at his home in California. I was on the next plane out

of New York. Unfortunately it was headed to Miami. Several days later I arrived on the West Coast.

At Dylan's home I was led to a very well lit, very high ceilinged room with a hard wood floor and nothing in it. As I waited my palms sweated and thoughts cascaded through my mind. Then reverse cascaded. Shortly I found I could claw my thoughts. Thoughts bounces were next. How wonderful ... thought juggling ... an area that has not been fully explored by the juggling community at large.

My thought patterns were interrupted by Dylan entering the room. Wearing a tattered leather jacket and carrying three guitar cases he looked ... humanesque. When in the center of the room he took off his jacket, removed the guitars from their cases and stacked them on the floor. He acknowledged me with a quick sly smile and then did a successful three guitar kick-up into a juggle. His subsequent routine included a full shower of under the leg throws, continuous back-crosses and doubles to triples and very smoothly back to single turns. He ended with flaming guitars a la Jimi Hendrix. I was impressed to say the least.

Fascinated with jugglers since his childhood Dylan said he had been taught by a juggler he met in Greenwich Village. When I pressed him for details he became defensive and vague. There was more small talk and several hours of serious juggling which left Dylan relaxed and happy. He

insisted that I listen to him play some reworked versions of his old songs. At first I hesitated, then consented.

After a few minutes it was obvious that juggling has influenced Mr. Dylan's latest work. The chorus to his famous Blowin' in the Wind now reads: the problem my friend is blowin' in the wind, my clubs keep on blowin' in the wind. Chills ran through my body as he sang an inspired rendition of a retitled classic now called Like a Rolling Globe. His last number was a ­ballad about a man who unsuccessfully seeks salvation through juggling ... appropriately entitled, Drop, Drop, Dropping on Heaven's Floor.

The as quickly as he had come he was gone. Bob Dylan ... to many an enigma ... to me just another famous unknown juggler.

-- Elliot Freeman

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