Wherein I present another installment of my occasional list of random trivial bullshit which I either discovered while working on posts, or read about somewhere, or have had stuck in my head forever. Now you’re stuck with it. 😂

☛In his book Chronicles: Volume 1, Bob Dylan says he met Mae West and that she had recorded one of his songs! Fascinated by this “can’t possibly be true” story, I looked it up. For the easily amused, the bored, or the just curious, here it is. It’s um, er,  … interesting.

☛Starting when he was 12, Levon Helm of The Band and his younger sister started performing as Lavon (his given name) and Linda. He played guitar, harmonica, and sang Chuck Berry or Muddy Waters songs. She played bass and sang mostly country and folk songs.

☛Speaking of The Band, in his book, Robbie Robertson tells of meeting a club owner in Fort Worth, Texas who wanted them to play a real “weird, burned out” shithole club. A few months later they realized they had met Lee Harvey Oswald’s assassin, Jack Ruby, in the flesh.

☛In 1971, a movie called Percy was released. It may fascinate you (as it does me) to know that the soundtrack was done by the Kinks. The plot – such as it is – according to Wikipedia:

“Edwin (Bennett), an innocent and shy young man, is hit by a nude man falling from a high-rise building while carrying a chandelier Edwin’s penis is mutilated in the accident and has to be amputated; the falling man is killed. Edwin becomes the recipient of the world’s first penis transplant.

He receives the very large penis of the womanizer killed in the same accident. With his new bit of anatomy (which he names “Percy”), Edwin follows the womanizer’s footsteps, meeting all his women friends, before settling happily with the donor’s mistreated widow.” It goes on to say that “During the making of the film, another comedy about a penis was being shot. [The director) always regarded this as a rip rip-off.” As well he should. Penis-gate!

☛In a 1992 Vanity Fair article, Courtney Love admitted to using heroin. It’s unclear if she did or did not know she was pregnant. Regardless, due to the furor, Seattle child welfare services took their daughter Frances Bean into custody for four weeks.

This did not endear the writer of the article to Kurt Cobain who wanted to “kill her.” Frances, of course, was returned. Michael Stipe is the now twenty-four-year-old Frances’ godfather and Drew Barrymore is her godmother.

☛Oh, and for the record, Dylan is supposedly working on Vol 2 of the planned three-volume Chronicles, which, in part, would cover some of his early albums like Freewheelin’ as well as Blood On The Tracks. Now that I’d like to read. Also, interesting interview with Dylan on his web site. Mostly to plug his new album of standards but I always find him an interesting, sometimes fascinating, interviewee.