A letter from César Díaz

Some years ago, I got an email which surprised me, to say the least. It bore the title “Dylan with no harp!”, probably in response to something I had written about that, and was from a certain César Díaz. Not something that happens every day, to be sure, that I’m contacted by one of Dylan’s former guitar players.

He wrote:

When I was his tech before I joined the band, I always made sure that there would be plenty of harmonicas for him to use, in minor keys, sharps and flats — you name it I had it.

After I left to have my liver transplant, the new tech never bothered to ask me how I handled Bob. Consequently he began giving Bob the same old harmonicas even though some would already be blown. I had a harmonica tester made by Hohner — a very simple device, but I could then tell if any of them were bad or defective. I heard around ’97 that Bob was throwing the harmonicas at the new tech — no need to wonder why!

I doubt that any back injury would prevent Dylan from ever using the harmonica again, to my knowledge it seems more a ”lack” of trust. Bob’s a creature of habits, and once he falls into a ”groove” he rarely changes, unless of course the same bad thing would happen time after time …

I only allowed a set of 7 harmonicas to remain for only three shows at the most! After that … I would always be concerned and would lay 7 new ones on the platter. He never complained to me about having a bad harmonica… It takes one to know one!

Thank you, César Díaz ®©
http://www.cesardiaz.com

I wrote back to him, asking him for permission to publish his mail — given that he had sent it to someone who ran a Dylan website, I assumed that might have been what he had in mind. I also hinted at the rumours that there should be some kind of contract preventing people in Dylan’s vicinity from saying too much in public. He answered:

Thanks Eyolf: As long as it is printed with your very same introduction, I cannot see anything wrong with it.

I don’t have anything against Bob and grew to like him quite a lot, it’s a shame that other musicians and people who, for a period of time, however lengthily, cannot tell when the gleam is gone. We all have jobs and relations that for any number of reasons can end at any moment, heck life’s that way, here today and gone this afternoon…

I for one never signed any contract with Dylan’s management concerning interviews or my own career. Bob of all people knows that the company you keep says a lot about you; he left home and came east to find his hero and quickly associated himself with a legend very much so as I did. I struggled with my pride and ability as a musician and sacrificed precious time for the likes of Stevie Ray Vaughan, Bob and many others. I knew it was my time to leave and that I was dying — I left without any kind of compensation except for clothes and guitars, hats and things that I could use. I was even told by his current manager that I was ‘not what he would call record company material’ — this coming from a person that could not play his way out of a paper bag, let alone be able to humble himself to become ‘the bag carrier’ as Victor Maymudes did.

Many of the people who have worked for Dylan in the past have a notion that they will return someday and that if they don’t say anything about their experience then they will have a better chance because they have kept their lips sealed, ‘loose lips sink ships’ they say… but I am no longer on that ship… I was given a new lease on life which cost $375,000.00. I had to sell many things I truly would have loved to keep, many came from Bob. To me his generosity in both allowing me to play in his Band and the gifts I’ve received throughout the years has been enourmous and I am very sure he appreciates the fact that I didn’t lean on him for any help. He called me right before I was to be operated and offered me his prayers. Things like that mean a lot to me.

We played the song ‘Oxford Town’ for the only time ever, in Oxford Mississippi. I am a man of color and that to me was the greatest honor. I speak the truth to the best of my recollection — some things have become hazy but for the most part I have no ill feelings concerning the way I was treated or what the press may have said, like ‘roadie turned guitarist’, ‘Dylan’s Puerto Rican roadie’ — maybe being Hispanic makes me a better tech — ‘A Ragtag Band that even included a member of the Crew’ … A lot has been said that I don’t much appreciate but people are entitled to have their opinions… I have mine.

More certain than death itself is the fact that I will never go back, not under the same circumstances. That moment was captured and frozen in time. I look ahead and like Dylan… I ‘Don’t look back’.

César Díaz

A short while later, César Díaz died, and I didn’t know what to do with his mails. They do contain some interesting details which may not shatter anyone’s foundations or change the world in any way, but hey, we’re all addicts, aren’t we — any little tidbit is interesting. And despite the slightly self-indulgent tone, I have grown fond of ‘Dylan’s Puerto Rican roadie’.

As I was cleaning up my desk today, I found my old printouts, and I figured it was time to pass them on. Raise a glass to César, and play Oxford Town one more time.

One Laptop Per Child

When I first heard about the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project I thought, “Dream on. Nice idea, perhaps a tad imperialistic despite its good intentions, but more than a tad unrealistic — it’ll never happen anyway, so not to worry. Nice dream, but dream on.”

The idea was this: a laptop, designed to be simple, rough, directly usable, under any conditions, even in areas with no reliable power supply, and so cheap that it could be sold in underdeveloped countries and finally let them in on the digital revolution, and powerful enough not to be simply a toy. The precondition was that enough orders were placed, so initially 1 million laptops per order (i.e. per country) was the minimum. This, in turn, would bring the price down to $100. So for a measly sum of 100 million dollars — hardly a week’s worth of mortgage to banks in the West, I assume — a whole population would be given all the chances that a computer can offer.

And there was more: the mesh networking on which the laptop is based allows any laptop to be connected to any other OLPC laptop in the area. So with just one laptop connected in, say, Zaire, the whole million of other OLPC kids would be online, in a gigantic, organic network, covering and connecting countries, continents, heck, the whole world.

OK. Nice dream, but dream on.

Or so I thought. But with increasing, incredulous astonishment I’ve gradually been led to believe that it may not be just a dream.

Every time I read a report on the progress of the project or a review of the product, my hair rises in excitement. Literally. I think “This is too good to be true.” “This is mind-boggling in its implications, it couldn’t happen, but it does!

Several countries have already signed up. The fourth beta version has brought the speed up (which was a major objection in earlier versions). Most reviews are overwhelmingly positive (including the one written by someone in the target group, a 12-year-old).

The laptop will not cost $100 but $200, but what they have managed to put together at that price seems incredible. But true. Up to twelve hours battery life, supplemented by a mechanical generator and a solar cell panel; the mesh network; a case which must appeal to kids (perhaps even to some adults); a sound selection of Linux-based software; a one-button peek into the internals of software where the user can make changes directly (and restore them if something goes wrong) in order to stimulate the understanding of the internals of computers — I want a laptop like that! And had I been living in North America I could have, through the Give 1 Get 1 program.

What’s most fantastic about the OLPC program is that . . .

No, wait — what’s most fantastic is probably that millions of children in underdeveloped countries will be given a chance they didn’t have before, opening up opportunities to get a better life.

But other than that, what’s most fantastic about the OLPC program is that it shows that it is still possible to be visionary, to get a wildly unrealistic idea and follow it through to realization, and — if it works out like it seems to — to change the world for the better.