His stature, my friend, was all a lot of wind
IN HIS NEW MEMOIR, Bob Dylan says he loathed being known as the guru of the ‘60s youth culture. “The big bugs in the press kept promoting me as the mouthpiece, spokesman, or even conscience of a generation,” Dylan writes in a passage excerpted in Newsweek.
“I felt like a piece of meat that someone had thrown to the dogs. I had very little in common with and knew even less about a generation that I was supposed to be the voice of.”
“Chronicles, Vol. 1,” due out next Tuesday, already has reached No. 5 on Amazon.com’s best seller list. Dylan is at work on volume two.
Dylan told London’s The Sunday Telegraph that he moved to rural New York state in search of solitude, only to be followed en masse by his fans. “It all turned into a nightmare,” he said.
The singer said his fear that a crazed fan could attack him led him to keep several guns in his house.
“In the early years everything had been like a magic carpet ride for me, and then all at once it was over,” Dylan said. Asked whether he came close to a nervous breakdown, he replied: “I guess I did.”
On the charts at murder one, with a bullet
A Los Angeles grand jury has indicted record producer Phil Spector for first-degree murder in the February 2003 shooting death of actress Lana Clarkson.
Spector, 64, pleaded innocent Monday and remains free on $1 million bail. He suggested in an Esquire magazine interview that Clarkson had shot herself at his mansion, but prosecutors say they found blood and gunshot residue on Spector, along with evidence that he cleaned and moved the gun.
Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty.
And now, for something really bad …
The son of R&B singer Chaka Khan has been arrested for investigation of murder.
Damien Patrick Holland, 25, was arrested shortly after the Friday night shooting of an 18-year-old man in Los Angeles. Holland and the victim were fighting and both struggled to control a gun when it fired, police said.
Khan, 51, is known for hits such as “Tell Me Something Good” and “I Feel For You.”
Walking away like a man
Singer Frankie Valli has filed for divorce from his wife of 20 years.
Valli, 67, and his estranged wife, Randy, have 10-year-old twin boys and a 17-year-old son.
A former member of The Four Seasons, Valli is known for hits such as “Sherry,” “Walk Like a Man,” “Rag Doll” and the theme song from “Grease.” He also has appeared in several films and HBO’s “The Sopranos.”
If he is not fit, you must admit
Celebrity lawyer Johnnie Cochran Jr., best known for his defense of O.J. Simpson, was admitted to a Los Angeles hospital Monday for additional tests and evaluation of a previously diagnosed neurological condition.
In April, Cochran, 66, announced that he would temporarily curtail his work to receive treatment. His family has requested that the nature of the condition, which is not life-threatening, remain private.
Quoteworthy
David Letterman, on Jay Leno‘s announcement he would turn “The Tonight Show” over to Conan O’Brien in five years: “I think he said he couldn’t take it another minute, so he’s leaving in 2009. … I wonder if I can get a tape over there?”
The birthday bunch
Actor Steve Forrest is 80. Actress Anita Ekberg is 73. Singer Jerry Lee Lewis is 69. TV personality Bryant Gumbel is 56. Comedian-actor Andrew “Dice” Clay is 46. Singer-bassist Les Claypool (Primus) is 41. Actress Jill Whelan (“Love Boat”) is 38. Actress Emily Lloyd is 34. Actress Natasha Gregson Wagner is 34.