Bob Dylan/Laura Jane Grace Landlord AU

I’m sure Bob Dylan has never heard this song. Which is a shame, because I think he’d find it funny.

I love Laura Jane Grace because she never has anything to hide in her music. Absolutely in-your-face all the time; a DIY punk songwriting ethos even into the major-label years. More songs should have mouth harps and fiddles.

It’s a bonus track off White Crosses, and I can see why it wasn’t on the standard release because how do you pitch this? Sure, it’s catchy, earnest, and well made, but it’s not exactly gunna get the kids going, nor even the lighters in the air.

This is not a song about queer utopias, but it could be. It’s the simple superhero daydream we never grow out of. Imagine Bobby Z as your personal teddy bear. It strips the American Bard of all his celebrity and splendor, brings him down to earth, in the way we would like all our heroes to be. All that rock and roll reverence is no substitute for a genuine friendship.

People always say “don’t meet your heroes” because they might let you down, but I’m far more worried about letting them down, you know? Do you really want to be a punisher? A starry-eyed slackjaw? I’ve taken to rehearsing what I’m going to say when I’m bound for some book signing. And you know what? It has only made me more insufferable. I said something totally incomprehensible about emo music to Hanif Abdurraqib once; he smiled politely and asked how I spelled my name. I told Torrey Peters her book was as good as Les Mis and she laughed and was like, “What are you talking about?” And the story I’ve told a thousand times: I met ¾ of Rise Against on the street once and got on my literal knees to bow to them. The bassist said, “Please do not do that,” but indulged me for the photo opp anyway.

We want to be chill. We want to act like a regular human person. Because well, even Bob Dylan is a regular human person, no matter that he’s one of the most lauded musical acts of all time. I think it’s cool to genuflect to this elder statesman only in a manner that sets him on even footing with …Against Me!

I think I’ve had this dream too about Laura Jane Grace. Where I wouldn’t break down crying in front of her while explaining how Transgender Dysphoria Blues finally held up a mirror to all the confusion I hadn’t allowed myself to admit. We’d get Lebanese food and complain about Midwestern winters. We’d browse the used bookstore. What makes your heroes more human than learning that they’ve got heroes too? And learning they’re human, well, isn’t that a relief?

When I was a kid, my dad read me A Wizard of Earthsea by known anarchist Ursula Le Guin. The book scared me so much, I asked him to stop, and I didn’t read it again until years, and it transported me so wholly to my childhood room again I wept. And I kept telling myself I had to write to her, had to let her know how much her work moved me. It’s the fifth anniversary of her death this week. I never wrote to her.

I wonder if Ursula Le Guin ever got to hear “I Was A Teenage Anarchist.” I bet she would’ve enjoyed it.

I don’t want to leave this world with any gratitude left unsaid.

So, I’ve taken to writing to the artists I love. It’s often easier to find an email than it is an in-person event, and I like to think it’s a mercy to filter my feelings through text, where I’m slightly more eloquent, and allow them the time and space to consider a response. Many don’t respond, and that’s ok. The few times friendly folks have reached out with nice things to say about my work I was certain it’s a phishing scam or something else sinister. Some artists do reply though, and I have a folder of nice conversations where I collect these reciprocal gratitudes. I look at them when I’m sad.

Laura, if you’re reading this, send your song to Bob’s agent or stand outside his tour bus with a boombox. I want him to hear it so bad.

Who are your parasocial performers? Do you think Bob Dylan would be a decent landlord? Hit me back.