Bob Dylan @ The Aragon Ballroom

During my years in junior high and freshman year of high school my parents refused to let me go to concerts. They had the belief that everyone who went to concerts, went to do drugs and worship the devil. It took me until about sophomore year of high school before they'd let me go to concerts unsupervised and even then they were a little weary. Of course they had nothing to worry about back then. All I was going to were harmless punk rock shows at our local VFW hall. I mean the worst that would happen is we would drink beer or like vodka mixed with some awful mixer until we puked all over ourselves. Had I been wearing tie-died shirts and fucking hemp necklaces then they should have been concerned, but for the most part I was pretty harmless.

So last Friday my Dad and I went to see Bob Dylan at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago for my birthday. I had never been to a concert with my Dad before and this was the first time to show him what concerts are really all about. We got to the front door and the security guards were patting down people at the door. I said to my dad, "hey look Dad, the guards are checking everyone to make sure none of the bad people bring drugs into the concert." He said, that is great son, I can't believe I ever doubted you that going to concerts was anything but a wholesome activity for a lad such as yourself."

As we waited for Mr. Dylan to go on, something strange started to happen though. All these people with beards and shirts with bears on them started walking into the concert. At first, I thought to myself, "these people must be nice, I mean they have to be, they've got fucking bears on their t-shirts for christ sakes!!

Just as Dylan started into his first song everything changed. I swear I saw the guards patting everyone down, but out of the corner of my eye, I see a rather unkept individual pull a fucking 3 foot bong out of his jacket. I tried to explain to my Dad, that the guy was actually a backup up horn player to Dylan's band, but he replied, "If I'm not mistakened that young gentleman is holding a device that is used to smoke marijuana." I tried to convince him otherwise but As Dylan struck into the first few chords of "It's all over now Baby Blue," people are pulling pipes out of their pants, cigars filled with dope, 1 hitters, 2 hitters, 18.678595 hitters.

At that point there was nothing to do but laugh, watch Dylan through a smoke screen and say Dad, "this is Rock and Roll."

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