The Week of The Icons - 'BOBAMA'


Apart from the clichéd pint of Guinness shot, the baby and old lady hugging, the Tome Cruise moment on the mobile phone, the Richard Pryor inspired speech, this was the highlight for me:

Great advert for BMW. Check out how thick the doors are!


First we get the Queen talking Gaelige, then Barack Obama gets a sesh on in the before unknown Ballygobackwards backwater of Moneygall, (I bet he was probably the first black man, never mind President of The United States to sup a pint in that pub!) now forever on the map as 'Obamaville' it was an incredible day for Irish pride. Can we organise more state visits please!? In the past fortnight I have completely forgotten all the acronyms; IMF, ECB , BOI, AIB, EMF, and it's just been positivity on the airwaves. And, how much better does that feel? WEll, the answer my friend is blowing in the wind (and fuck me it was windy yesterday especially when Barack and Michelle arrived in Ireland nearly blown off the runway and then greeted by Darby O'Gillmore and The Little People) ....Okay so I robbed that 'Blowin' line from a certain Mr Robert Allen Zimmerman...AKA Bob Dylan who is celebrating 70 years on this planet but Zimmerman is not ready yet for the Zimmerframe. A living legend is a term thrown around but he is the true embodiment. A chameleon of a man he is the only living artist among a select group (Cohen, Waits, Young, McCartney, Simon, Moore etc.) that stands head and shoulders above what is out today and like a complicated fossil he just doesn't want to be "got."

"Well I try my best to be just like I am, but everybody wants me to be just like them."

Pretty much sums him up. Happy Birthday Mr Zimmerman. And thanks.

Here are some of my favourite pics of the little Jew who knew.


Taken in Woodstock in 1968 this is possibly my favourite Dylan photograph. A large print hangs in the Morrison Hotel in Dublin and the first time I saw it I just stopped. It was taken by rock photographer Elliot Landy and one day when I have some money "it will be mine!"


Simple truth...either that or waiting for the bus.


Looking like Joyce or Rimbaud this could have been taken at the turn of the century.



Good hair. Better scarf.


Classic young Dylan.


With the legend Johnny Cash. Check out their duet 'Girl of the North Country' on
Nashville Skyline. Sublime.


Braincogs on fire.


With his son Jakob.

And after selling over a 1oo million albums, the Pulitzer Prize, Nobel Prize nomination, 20 million Google pages, over 30 studio albums and at least 500 songs what can you possibly choose as his greatest musical moment? This wins hands down:



Although, let's face it this is a close second:


Yes. That is Bob Dylan rapping with Kurtis Blow in 1986 but we all know that Dylan wrote and performed the first rap song way back in the 60s: