Dylan and Weberman: A Letter

We ask A. J. Weberman to publicly apologize to Bob Dylan for leading a public campaign of lies and malicious slander against Dylan in the past year. It is about time someone came to Dylan's defense when A. J. published articles and went on radio calling Dylan a junkie--which he never was--attacked Dylan for "deserting the movement"--when he was there before the movement and helped create it--and publicized Dylan's address and phone--exposing Bob and his wife and children to public embarrassment and abuse.

Dylan is more than a myth--he is a human being, like you and me. He has feelings and sensitivities like you and me. Who is there among us who has not had his consciousness shaped by the words and music of Bob Dylan? Yet who raised his or her voice or uttered a word to defend Dylan when A. J. Weberman began his personal campaign of slander against Dylan--in the true tradition of the sensationalistic press willing to print anything about someone famous--even organizing demonstrations at Dylan's home--for god's sake:--can't Dylan have some privacy! Can't he have some peace of mind in his own home to think and write and make music and be with his family?

Weberman took advantage of Dylan's fame. If Bob Dylan attacked A. J. Weberman, who would listen or publish it? If A. J. Weberman has some "inside gossip" or "the real truth" about Bob Dylan, everyone is all ears because everyone wants to talk about Bob Dylan. Stories spread from person to person in an ever-widening circle of exaggeration and bullshit. No one cares to find out the truth about Bob Dylan, the person. They are too busy amusing themselves by telling outlandish stories about Bob Dylan--the myth--whom they have never met.

Weberman tried to make a name for himself by attacking Dylan and proclaiming himself a Dylanologist or something like that. No one else named Weberman an expert on Dylan. Weberman calls himself an expert, and all of a sudden the press is all over him trying to get information or gossip about Dylan. Now whenever someone writes about Bob Dylan, they also interview A. J. because he is a self-proclaimed authority on Dylan's music. A. J. claims everything Dylan writes is either about Weberman or about heroin. What bullshit!

Weberman is to Dylan as Manson is to the Beatles--and Weberman uses what he interprets from Dylan's music to try and kill Dylan and build his own fame. Now A. J. Weberman takes credit for Dylan's "George Jackson" song. More egocentric bullshit. Dylan wrote it in spite of Weberman and in spite of "the movement." Dylan wrote it because he felt it.

A. J. Weberman's campaign--and the movement's complicity in it--is in the current fad of everyone in the revolution attacking each other and spreading false rumors about each other. It's time we defended and loved each other--and saved our anger for the true enemy, whose ignorance and greed destroys our planet.

--The Rock Liberation Front
David Peel, Jerry Rubin,
Yoko Ono, John Lennon