A. J. Weberman
Alan Jules Weberman (born May 26, 1945) is an American writer, political activist,
Early life
Weberman was born to Jewish parents in
During the early 1960s, Weberman attended
Bob Dylan
Weberman has written on the life and works of Bob Dylan, including a pamphlet titled Dylanology in 1969 and creating a word concordance of Dylan's lyrics. He also wrote the Dylan to English Dictionary, published in 2005. One of Weberman's theories on Dylan's songwriting is that some of Dylan's songs are actually about, or addressed to, Weberman himself.[5] Authors Bob Spitz and Jim Curtis have each rejected, and ridiculed, Weberman's interpretations of Dylan's work.[6][7][8]
In 1969, Weberman founded the Dylan Liberation Front with associates such as street musician David Peel, aiming "to help save Bob Dylan from himself". Weberman was convinced that, from Dylan's docile, smiling visage on the cover of his 1969 album Nashville Skyline, the singer was hiding from his social conscience and ignoring his responsibilities as a political spokesman for the counterculture.[9] Once Dylan had moved back to Greenwich Village from Upstate New York in 1970, Weberman took to rifling through his garbage.[10] That same year, Weberman began lecturing in Dylanology at the left-wing Alternate University of New York. At this time, the Liberation Front lamented that Dylan had become a "reactionary force in rock", a view that was echoed among the radical left.[11]
Rolling Stone magazine called Weberman "the king of all Dylan nuts";[12] he has also been described as obsessively stalking Dylan.[13][14] In late summer 1971, Dylan – annoyed that Weberman had reneged on their agreement that he would no longer dig through his garbage[15][16] – assaulted Weberman on Elizabeth Street in Manhattan.[17] In a 1997 article, Rolling Stone reported that Weberman, "a man that terrorized Bob Dylan during the '60s", had now "returned to hassle his son", Jakob Dylan. Weberman claimed that the younger Dylan was a heroin addict.[18] In 1977, Weberman's telephone conversations with Dylan from the early 1970s were released on the Folkways Records album Bob Dylan vs A.J. Weberman – The Historic Confrontation.[3]
Writing in 2014 about the phenomenon of "Bob Dylan obsessives", John Dickerson of
Rock Liberation Front
Weberman and the Dylan Liberation Front ceased their scrutiny of Dylan, temporarily, after he performed at
Weberman's idealism resonated with John Lennon, who had recently moved to Greenwich Village with his artist wife, Yoko Ono, and embarked on a radical left agenda under the guidance of activist Jerry Rubin. Lennon espoused Weberman's principles in his interactions with the music press, stating that he was dedicated to making politically motivated music without a thought for commercial gain.[25] In early December, the RLF demonstrated outside Capitol Records, protesting the company's delay in releasing the live album from the Concert for Bangladesh after Harrison had accused Capitol of refusing to distribute the record at cost price. During the protest, Weberman announced that Lennon and Ono had joined the Liberation Front, which he defined as "a group dedicated to exposing hip capitalist counterculture ripoffs and politicizing rock music and rock artists".[26]
Through Lennon, Rubin came to be involved with the RLF, and soon sidelined Weberman. In his speech at the freedom rally for the imprisoned poet and activist John Sinclair, on December 10, 1971, where Lennon, Ono and Peel were among the performers,[24] Rubin described the event as "the first act of the Rock Liberation Front".[27]
Lennon, Ono and Rubin also planned a US tour that would use their political message to unite the nation's young voters and thwart
Weberman regained his leadership of the RLF in February 1972,[31] when the group "liberated" the offices of Lennon and Harrison's business manager, Allen Klein, at 1700 Broadway.[32] The event was a press conference in which Klein attempted to respond to allegations made in New York magazine, and partly supported in Rolling Stone, that he had pocketed funds intended for the Bangladeshi refugees from the sale of the Concert for Bangladesh album.[33][34] Chanting "You'll wonder where the money went, when Klein runs a charity event", the protestors disrupted the press conference[35] and gained further exposure for Klein's alleged fraud in Variety, Rolling Stone and The Village Voice.[29] Surprisingly for Weberman, this resulted in an invitation from Lennon and Ono for him to visit them at their Bank Street apartment, where the couple confided that Klein was "ripping us off too".[36] According to Weberman, he introduced Lennon to a group of sympathizers and financiers for the IRA, to whom Lennon made a generous financial contribution.[37]
Lennon's direct role in political activism soon waned, although he continued to finance activities by Weberman and Peel. The latter recorded an album, The Pope Smokes Dope, which was produced by Lennon and Ono, and released on Apple Records in April 1972. Lennon also donated $50,000 to pay for demonstrators' travel expenses to Miami, Florida, where Weberman helped to stage a mass protest against Nixon at the Republican National Convention in August.[38]
Coup D'Etat in America: The CIA and the Assassination of JFK
In 1975, Weberman wrote Coup D'Etat in America: The CIA and the Assassination of JFK with Michael Canfield. According to one account, "Canfield and Weberman propose a basic theory on the assassination, revolving around the
A reviewer for The Harvard Crimson wrote: "Despite its lapses into obsessive speculations about connections between irrelevant figures and dubious arguments by analogy of modus operandi, Coup d'Etat is a chillingly convincing book."[41]
Coup d'Etat in America reiterated Tad Szulc's allegation that Hunt was the acting chief of the CIA station in Mexico City in 1963 while Lee Harvey Oswald was there.[42][nb 1] In July 1976, Hunt filed a $2.5 million libel suit against Weberman and Canfield, as well as the book's publishers and editor.[44]
Other activities
In 2002, Weberman, along with the Jewish Defense Organization, and JDO chief Mordechai Levy, were successfully sued for libel in Brooklyn, New York.[45] The jury stated that Weberman was responsible for $300,000 of the $850,000 judgement. The judgment was overturned on appeal.
In 2005, Weberman worked with Yippies including
In 2006, Weberman, along with some of his former students, appeared in a documentary film about his exploits as a Dylanologist, titled The Ballad of AJ Weberman.[47] The film includes a performance by Peel and Weberman of "The Ballad of A. J. Weberman",[47] a tribute song that Peel recorded for his 1974 album Santa Claus Rooftop Junkie.[48]
Published works
Articles
- "Dylan's Movie: How Success Ruined His Sex Life." High Times, no. 33 (May 1978).
Books
- Dylanology. Hong Kong: Whitepress Corp. (1969).
- Concordance to the Songs, Poetry, and Assorted Writings of Bob Dylan. New York: Private printing (1971).
- ISBN 978-0932551108.
- Republished: San Francisco, Calif.: Quick American Archives (1992). ISBN 978-0932551108.
- Republished: San Francisco, Calif.: Quick American Archives (1992).
- My Life in Garbology. New York: Stonehill Press (1980). ISBN 978-0883730966.
- "A study in famous people's garbage by the enigmatic founder of garbology and the National Institute of Garbology himself."
- Dylan to English Dictionary. New York: Yippie Museum Press (2005). ISBN 978-1419613388.
- RightWing Bob: What the Liberal Media Doesn't Want You to Know about Bob Dylan. BookSurge Publishing (2009). ISBN 978-1439256152.
- Homothug: The Secret Life of Rudy Giuliani. New York: Yippie Museum Press.
- Ron Paul: America's Most Dangerous Nazi. Scott's Valley, Calif.: ISBN 978-1470014537.
- The Oswald Code (2018).
Interviews
- Interview with Bob Dylan. East Village Other (1971).
Notes
References
- ISBN 0-385-60125-5.
- ^ a b Dreifus, Claudia (March 4, 1971). "Bob Dylan in the Alley: The Alan J. Weberman Story". Rolling Stone. Retrieved December 8, 2017.
- ^ Salon. Archived from the originalon December 11, 2016. Retrieved December 7, 2017.
- ^ Sounes 2001, p. 263.
- ISBN 978-1416559160. Retrieved February 8, 2014.
A. J. Weberman, a renegade journalist who... went on to wage a lifelong campaign of wild theories aimed at proving that Dylan was a capitalist, a fraud, and a junkie, and that his songs were sometimes written to and about Weberman himself.
- ISBN 978-0393307696. Retrieved September 12, 2016.
… A. J.'s misguided interpretations ... His psycho-babble about lyrics and poetry had given way to screwy soliloquies ...
- ISBN 978-0393307696. Retrieved September 12, 2016.
Fundamentalists interpreted the bible the way A. J. Weberman interpreted Bob Dylan's songs. Any passage could be construed to support their dogma ...
- ISBN 978-0879723699. Retrieved February 8, 2014.
A. J. Weberman declared himself a Dylanologist by which he meant that he devoted himself to castrating Dylan's songs by reducing them to biographical references. This was nothing more than old-fashioned romantic reductionism ... Weberman in his trivialization of Dylan's work ...
- ISBN 978-1-84195-940-5.
- ^ Doggett 2007, pp. 398–99.
- ^ Doggett 2007, p. 390.
- ^ "Rock and Roll Daily", Rolling Stone, June 11, 2007
- ISBN 978-0745645230. Retrieved February 8, 2014.
Celebrity stalker – of which the original obsessive Dylanologist A. J. Weberman offers a prototype ...
- ^ Sounes 2001, p. 270:
Indeed, despite his great fame, and the attention of obsessives like A. J. Weberman, [Dylan] seemed determined to live as normal a life as possible.
- ^ Doggett 2007, p. 455.
- ISBN 978-0762442683. Retrieved February 8, 2014.
When in September 1969 Dylan moved back into New York City, it wasn't long before his Greenwich Village apartment was being visited by one A. J. Weberman, a semi-unhinged fan who rifled through his garbage ...
- ^ The Answers My Friend, Are Written in This Book By COLIN MOYNIHAN Published: January 16, 2006
- ^ "Man no fan of Dylan family", Rolling Stone, July 4, 1997
- ^ Dickerson, John (May 8, 2014). "The Fan in Me: The world of Bob Dylan obsessives". Slate. Retrieved December 7, 2017.
- ^ Doggett 2007, p. 445.
- ^ Doggett 2007, pp. 445–46.
- ISBN 978-0-06-177418-8.
- ^ a b Sabol, Blair (September 2, 1971). "The McCartney Burial: 'His ego was his amigo'". The Village Voice. Retrieved December 7, 2017.
- ^ a b Needs, Kris (March 22, 2016). "The tale of David Peel, the dope-smoking hippy who became the King of Punk". Classic Rock. Retrieved December 7, 2017.
- ^ Doggett 2007, pp. 446–47.
- ISBN 978-0-252061318.
- ^ Doggett 2007, pp. 466–67.
- ^ Doggett 2007, pp. 460–61.
- ^ a b Wiener 1991, p. 182.
- ^ Doggett 2007, pp. 462–63.
- ^ Doggett 2007, p. 485.
- ISBN 0-07-055087-5.
- ^ Doggett 2011, pp. 188, 192.
- ^ Fong-Torres, Ben (March 30, 1972). "Did Allen Klein Take Bangla Desh Money?". Rolling Stone. Retrieved October 21, 2017.
- ^ Doggett 2011, pp. 188–89.
- ^ Doggett 2011, p. 189.
- ^ Doggett 2007, pp. 486–87.
- ^ Doggett 2011, p. 190.
- ^ a b Cunningham, J.R. (October 21, 1975). "JFK Slaying Theory Offered". The Pittsburgh Press. Vol. 92, no. 90. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. p. 32. Retrieved October 22, 2014.
- ^ a b Barkham, John (August 17, 1975). "Newest Conspiracy Theory". The Victoria Advocate. Victoria Texas. p. 14. Retrieved October 22, 2014.
- ^ Zeitlin, Jonathan (October 27, 1975). "Bodies in the Garbage". The Harvard Crimson. Cambridge, Massachusetts. Retrieved October 7, 2015.
- ^ "Source Ruling Goes Against Hunt". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Vol. 52, no. 83. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. AP. November 4, 1978. p. 10. Retrieved April 13, 2015.
- ISBN 9780670235469.
- ^ "Hunt files libel suit over death charges". The Miami News. Miami. AP. July 29, 1976. p. 4A. Retrieved August 16, 2014.[permanent dead link]
- ^ "The Hunting of Steven J. Hatfill: Why are so many people eager to believe that this man is the anthrax killer?". September 6, 2002. Archived from the original on January 22, 2012.
- ^ Anderson, Lincoln (February 1–7, 2006). "Museum will have Abbie's trash, Rubin's road kill". The Villager. Archived from the original on June 24, 2006. Retrieved December 8, 2017.
- ^ a b Klibanoff, Caroline (June 29, 2009). "Documenting the Dylanologist: The Ballad of AJ Weberman Streaming Until Tomorrow". Paste. Archived from the original on December 8, 2017. Retrieved December 7, 2017.
- ^ Eder, Bruce. "David Peel & the Lower East Side Santa Claus Rooftop Junkie". AllMusic. Retrieved December 8, 2017.
Further reading
- Roberts, John (Spring 1995). "Dear Landlord: The A.J. Weberman Story". The Telegraph. pp. 78–91.
External links
- A.J. Weberman at IMDb
- The Ballad of A.J. Weberman (1969) – a documentary about A. J. Weberman at Media Burn Archive.