Struggling Artist

That’s a photo of Bob Dylan’s apartment in 1964. He had a desk, a lamp and a typewriter. There were a couple of other photos that accompanied the article and for some reason I thought:

“Such a great setup.”

I had a buddy in California who was a reader and a writer and I stopped by his place once - it looked like Dylan’s place - his cassette tapes of music lined one wall and his books were stacked up along the other wall.

When I lived alone in Connecticut, (and here in Lackawanna) I had a similar setup. 

I had a desk chair that rolled and I would eat dinner in front of the television and then roll over to the desk where I’d write.

I think of Steinbeck getting a cabin where he wrote ‘East of Eden’, and although I’ve never seen what the inside of his cabin looked like, I’m thinking of a candle lamp on a brown desk. Just enough light to write.

And of course, my favorite writing spot ever was at my parent’s home next to the hot water tank. I had enough room for my desk and my chair. I wrote my first three books there.

My setup now is pretty sparse as well, and it’s a truly comfortable spot.

There is a movie coming out about Springsteen and how he sang an entire album - Nebraska - while sitting in a chair in a beat-up bedroom in his rented house back in 1980. He sang 15 songs into a cassette recorder and that became the finished product.

You can hear his chair creaking in some of the songs.

It’s a weird thing, I guess, but I loved seeing the Dylan photos of his rat’s nest apartment.

He may have written “Blowing in the Wind” or “Knocking on Heaven’s Door” or “Forever Young” while sitting in a busted up chair in a dusky room.

You don’t need much around you when your imagination is running the show.

😎