U.S. radio talk-show host and living institution Rush Limbaugh mentioned the July 23rd Bob Dylan encounter with the Long Branch, NJ police department on his show today. He highlighted the difference between how Dylan responded to the cops versus how Professor Gates did (which I did in my own way here a couple of days ago).
Now, the situation was resolved uneventfully, the peace officers and Bob Dylan going their own way. There were no problems, not like Henry Louis Gates and Sergeant Crowley. You contrast that with what I call the Boston massacre, the insult that rocked the nation, the Professor Gates affair. The police didn’t recognize a professorial professor, and they reacted when yo mama got confrontational. They said, “Wait a minute, we’re going to arrest you, dude. You’re being contentious here with no reason.” Now, I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say that Bob Dylan, the name, is a zillion times more known that Henry Louis Gates, and so is Dylan’s face, and so is his voice. Now, the learning experience here is that a rock composer and singer 40 years back can teach civil behavior better than a tenured college professor.
Nevertheless Rush made some factual errors in telling the story. That’s not surprising, since he seemed to be referencing (and indeed on his site he linked to) the original “drive-by-media” Associated Press article on it. In that article, it was said that neither of the police officers involved had ever even heard of Bob Dylan. Later reporting by Chris Francescani of ABC, including a direct interview with Officer Kristie Buble, asserted that this was not true. The officers knew in general terms who Bob Dylan was, but they did not, however, recognize the rain-soaked man who’d been picked up as being Bob Dylan.
Mr. Limbaugh also made some swipes at the “Woodstock generation,” particularly in the light of all the remembrances of the Woodstock concert which have been flooding the media lately, with the 40th anniversary of the event. I certainly don’t mind hearing knocks at all that stuff, but it’s not accurate to include Bob Dylan with the same broad brush strokes. I guess it proves there’s still work to do around here. Oddly, Rush noted that Bob Dylan wasn’t actually at the Woodstock gig, but added, “He couldn’t get there because his son was sick.” Where the heck did he get that story? Mr. Snerdly doing some too-fast fact-checking?
Rush also took a swipe at Bob’s singing ability, which is too bad, but there you go. I think there are few if any better (and funnier) commentators on and observers of the political scene in America than Rush Limbaugh — and if you don’t agree you probably haven’t listened to him for any length of time — but when it comes to his taste in music, well … let’s just say that when he invokes something I genuinely dig it’s generally just a coincidence.
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It’s doubtless not relevant to why Rush doesn’t dig Dylan’s singing voice, but for those who don’t know, including overseas readers: radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh went completely deaf in 2001. He lost all hearing in both ears. While this loss of hearing was occurring, over a period of months, he continued doing his daily three-hour radio talk-show without informing his listeners that he was becoming and indeed had become deaf. I recall that I was listening to him a lot back then, and noticing some strange changes in his voice. Others noticed too, and sent him e-mails wondering what was wrong with the broadcast, or with the microphone, or with him. I remember him point-blank telling his listeners one day that there was nothing whatever wrong at his end, and that they should just adjust their own sets! Of-course he knew very well what was wrong, and thinking back about this later it struck me how that statement was as poignant as it was also typically humorous on his part. Being unable to hear his own voice anymore, he was losing the ability to control how it sounded. And this was for someone who was not merely a radio talker but also a pretty talented mimic when he felt like it (his imitation of Bill Clinton remains the most hilarious and spot-on I’ve ever heard). When he finally told his listeners that he was deaf, I was flabbergasted and not a little devastated also. People who don’t listen to him, or who hate his politics — or both — will sneer, but to me, it was equivalent in its cruel irony to Ludwig Van Beethoven losing his hearing. Limbaugh is a master of the medium of radio like no other. He was clearly born to do what he does, and makes just about every other talk radio host sound like an amateur, a bore, or a screeching maniac. Rush Limbaugh takes his conservative political views, his sense of humor, his timing and just his ability to articulate and day after day pumps out three golden hours of radio, while lesser mortals trying to the same thing just repeat themselves, harangue the air and use callers and interviewees as crutches. Naturally, some are better than others, but I’m sure all of them would acknowledge that there is only one Rush, and that no one else even comes near him.
Rush continued doing his show while totally deaf and even continued taking callers (having their words typed on a screen in real time so that he could have conversations with them). He pulled it off astoundingly well, in fact. I’m convinced that had he not been a conservative talk-radio host, his story — one of great personal courage and triumph over adversity — would have been celebrated with in-depth sympathetic stories on all the major TV networks. But he was a conservative talk-show host, so it didn’t really matter to anyone. Except, of-course, his twenty million or so listeners across the United States of America.
Ultimately he had a cochlear implant surgically placed into one of his ears, and he regained a form of hearing. He has said that it allows him to recognize and enjoy music that he knew previously to going deaf, but that he can’t really hear and enjoy new music with which his brain is unfamiliar.
As far as doing his radio show is concerned I believe that no one today, just turning it on, would think for a minute that he has any hearing problem whatsoever. And he almost never mentions it. But in reality he is still a deaf man doing a radio show — the biggest radio show in the country; I suppose the biggest radio show in history. He can control his voice again. He can do his mimicry. And he is a huge force to be reckoned with in U.S. politics.
Before the blogs, before Fox News, before the “new media,” there was Rush Limbaugh, saying what so many people thought but what was almost never heard in the mainstream media. Contrary to caricatures of him, Rush Limbaugh doesn’t radicalize or rile up anyone; rather, by articulating what so many ordinary Americans perceive anyway, Rush is more like a safety valve and a source of comfort and levity in the face of political conflict. The really bad thing is to feel isolated in one’s political outlook, and to see only decay and doom ahead. Rush Limbaugh daily lets his listeners know that they are not alone, that liberals are rightfully a source of hilarity, and that the liberal agenda, being ridiculous, can be defeated.
When it emerged a few years ago that he had an addiction to pain killers, many of those who hate him rejoiced and figured that a lot of his listeners would abandon him. Conservatives are so intolerant of weakness, right? Instead, his listeners rallied around him. Even President Bush, instead of trying to distance himself from someone who was at risk of being convicted of a crime, publicly expressed concern for Limbaugh and pronounced him “a great American.” There wasn’t any need for him to do that. Limbaugh hadn’t always agreed with Bush on particular policies then and certainly didn’t always agree with him afterward. But Dubya well understood the kind of contribution that Limbaugh had made to political discourse in America.
Rush Limbaugh gets paid very well for what he does. But it’s still worth remembering how rare a gift he possesses and how well he utilizes it.
His comments on Bob Dylan, off-key as they may have been in some respects, at least provided this opportunity to salute him.
