Magic (Nothing about) Christian(s)

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Bob Dylan, books, character, Christian, Christianity, Jesus Christ, literature, Magic Christian, music, novel, story, Terry Southern

There’s a book by Terry Southern. The margins are thick, lots of white space, less than a hundred pages of goings-on. It’s called The Magic Christian, a name which is a whole hearted misnomer at face value.

The little white novel is said, though verified to what degree – I can’t be sure, to have been the book that Bob Dylan used to have with him all the time as he was getting cleaned up and, however nominally, faith-based. He’d carry it under his arm maybe as a pretense, or maybe because he was leafing through it for a third or fourth time, who’s to say? But I thought reading it might give some insight further into his elusive character.

As it turns out, the book is a thousand surprises. It hardly carries my curiosity page after page to find out how the absurdities of this character, Guy Grand, will come to mean anything at all. My curiosity, you see, is strong.  And it’s not quenched by a monotonous plotline with no peaks in the action, or in my below-sea-level of intrigue.  It’s just that, too many pages of this Guy Grand and his antics without explanation begs some questions.  The protagonist is strange.  No, it’s something more than that, further off the charts than your day-to-day out of place person. If I knew him, I’d hear people call him out of his mind, and say he’s lost his marbles. Insane! Ridiculous! Unbelievable! Asinine! We, today, wouldn’t tolerate his games for even a second.  Yet he carries on in these frivolous pranks of his, unexplained, and without clear motive or resolution.

I can’t tell if he thinks they’re a good idea.  Or if he thrills at fooling America’s brightest bulbs.  Why doesn’t he earn a reputation for failure?  Can his money really buy such a clean slate time and time again?

For example, to simplify the particulars of my favorite trick: he buries hundreds of thousands of dollars, in bills, deep within a city block-long pile of warm manure and urine mixture.  And after painting a sign that says “free money”, he pays off the police to turn their heads for the morning, gets on a plane, and flies across the country to his home. No motive as far as I can tell, just a lot of money and some kind of unearthed desire towards the impossible.  And the chapter, of course, ends without the faintest explanation.

The “Magic Christian” doesn’t appear until the final few chapters of the novel.  It’s a boat.  A yacht or Titanic sort of enterprise that Guy Grand buys, as he does repeatedly to large corporations and organizations throughout.  Passengers have to apply for a spot on the cruiseship.  It’s only for the most elite.  But, there’s an element of facade to all of that, because Guy stows away half a hundred outcasts and weirdoes below deck, for release among the pristine passengers a few days into the trip.  He creates a plot of kidnapping and abuse through this video feed of the boat’s captain which, as planned, pushes passengers to see the mental health doctor aboard ship, who must be in on the plot.  But, for what, I cannot discern.  Guy Grand, himself, is on the boat as it turns into total chaos, but he just ignites protests among the unknowing passengers.  On and on it goes, until the boat returns home and Guy, as he has done for each prank thus far, pays off anyone who knows the truth in order to keep things hush hush.

So why this clustermess of a story under the arm of this legendary singer-songwriter?  I toyed with the idea that he sees some tongue-in-cheek parallels between the facade and the truth of Christianity, but I can’t even find the details to put together that simple theory.  I could be Dylan’s sincere view of Christianity, unreflective of Christ in any way, which would explain a pretty little thing or two.  It could also be that the whole situation lacks a single connection, and I’m tearing my hair out for nothing.  The book has nothing to do with Christians, Dylan’s never read it, he never even carried it like they say.  But.  I can’t shake a feeling that there’s something beneath the vanity of Guy Grand’s ideas.  I can’t get at it just yet, and can’t fathom how Dylan had it figured out.

Crossing the Chasm in Music

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Bob Dylan, Christianity, God, Jesus, Johnny Lang, music, Rascal Flatts, salvation, Stevie Ray Vaughn

In spouting random Bob Dylan information all weekend, I learned from my musician friends that he’s not the only rock ‘n’ roller to have surrendered his life to Christ.  In long hair and fringed leather vest, a man many years my senior talks about being a fan of Stevie Ray Vaughn decades ago.  That when Stevie got saved, his music escalated in quality, his lyrics were infinitely better, the performances he gave were energized and rich.  If you don’t believe, then that is quite the coincidence.  And if you do, it’s obvious that the Lord gifted him and enriched his talent when he chose to glorify Him.

Johnny Lang is a Christian too.  I didn’t hear it much in his music until the other day.  There’s not just “religious flavor” in That Great Day.  It’s a straight narrative of the expectancy of Christ’s second coming.  That convinced me it’s not a hoax, I suppose.  Because “spiritual” and loosely “religious” folk don’t study the Bible like that.  The New Agers are all about what feels good and right, and calling it supernatural.  Not Johnny.

And Rascal Flatts, if blues and rock ‘n’ roll isn’t for you, they’re Christ-followers too.  Knowing that, I listen to the music about their wives with a new ear.  It’s not like every other song about a woman, it’s a celebration of a marriage covenant that they don’t believe in dissolving. 

I pour these artists out the headphones of my ipod and the speakers in my car, supporting and advancing the cross-over that they’ve made into their career.  Not everyone’s cut out for ministry, contrary to many a conservative belief.  There’s no shame in alternative careers.  They’re not even alternative…for those who are gifted, they are second-to-none!  These guys may be spreading the love of Christ even more than the textbook church folk.  Because I know unbelievers who aren’t turning off Bob Dylan, Stevie Ray, Johnny Lang, Rascals and others like them, running scared from religious terminology and jargon.  And that ministry is exactly in the spirit of the Great Commission. 

The biography said that Bob Dylan met controversy and changes in audience with his “Saved” album, for that very reason – because it was inaccessible to anyone turned away from Christ.  The cross, and anything pointing to it, is foolishness to those who don’t believe.  But if these artists have succeeded in bringing the truth of Christ across the chasm that separates us, there’s something to be said about that.  I know about their lives and the rest of their careers, and they’re no Jesus.  No more or no less than me.  The Lord does use the strangest things to spread the Word.

I have to admit, I didn’t buy it at first.  Cummon, I thought, Bob Dylan?  Really, now?  But I’ll tell you what intensely elates me about the possibility of truth: I don’t need to go to a single other concert here on earth if these musical geniuses are going to be rockin’ out in Heaven.

I Promise

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Bob Dylan, marriage, materialism, promises, women

So, I’m reading about Bob Dylan out of a big book that claims to be the bio of all Bob Dylan bios.  Maybe it is, I’m yet impartial to its ranking (and also have little base for comparison).  But the pictures told a whole lot in all of about eight pages.  After I had the refresher of Dylan’s time line, I flipped to a chapter in the latter half called “Faith”. 

Terms like ‘faith’ tend to be ambiguous these days, especially with New Age-type movements employing Christian and Biblical language with brand new, man-made definitions.  It’s almost trendy to redefine like that (but so out of line) and to use familiar language to say something fresh.  So, ‘faith’ can probably mean just about anything in this case.  Turns out, it basically means ‘women’ so far. 

At the point in his life where this chapter picks up, he’s already sickeningly famous, living on a 2.5 million dollar estate that is one of four or five.  He’s gone through the intro-rocker stage, where his immaculate talent was egregiously overlooked and now in super-stardom he’s already annoyed with his obsessive fan base.  And with all that money and fame can buy, he’s nothing but unsatisfied and desperate.  He seems to be in at least a fistful of relationships on the emotional level at any given time (one is usually, but not necessarily, his current wife).  And that’s not to say he’s deeply emotionally involved either, but that the unsatisfied, seeking attitude sees temporary relief in the next woman that walks in his door (often, literally). 

I’ve talked about covenant and vows in marriage a few times this week, resolving that those promises are meant to keep.  And in light of said discussions, Bob Dylan breaks my heart.  He has everything that any materialistic American (is it redundant to say both?) could ever want and yet he runs around taking more from this wretched world than his fame can even buy him; woman after woman after woman.  I know words aren’t worth a dime when the actions don’t back them up, but what is it that gives folks the idea that “I do and I will forever…” means “I’ll try as long as I don’t get bored”, or “Until I change my mind”?

I want to say it’s ignorant.  I want to condemn the single-minded selfish who parade their right to divorce and remarry, and do it again, leaving shrapnel of broken families, children, and friends…and promises, scattered all over “the house that she got”.  I want to read them their vows and make them stand true to their word.  But, I can’t.  I can’t say “Look, I’ve done it!”, and if I could they wouldn’t care.  I can only try to separate the talent and thrill in the Bob Dylan’s from the choice that mars a man’s word.  I can only say that I’ll be true, true to a promise I’ll maybe never make – but those are all just words, too.