But did you know the story did not, by a long long shot, end there? Being the true faithless gigantic-left-wing conspiracy-sniffing cynic that I am, I decided to do a little amateur sleuthing on behalf of us all, and if you're now truly sitting down, here's what I finally came up with:
First of all, the local New York media, sensing a cute (albeit temporary) Lewinsky diversion afoot, immediately tracked down the stage-crasher and identified him as Michael Portnoy, a 26-year-old self-styled performance artist slash musician residing in, of course, Greenwich Village. They gave him a call, and with the post-Grammy parties still in full swing fifty or so Manhattan blocks uptown, Michael began to talk. AND talk. "I was PUT up there!" he told one New York radio interviewer an hour or so after the event ended. "It was ALL REHEARSED," he told another. "Right down to that message painted on my chest." He means, of course, the infamous words "SOY BOMB" which were scrawled in black across his shirtless torso. True enough, even an elementary knowledge of network television -- to say nothing of a multi-million-dollar hoot like the Grammys -- should tell you not just ANYONE can climb up on a stage in front of a billion or so viewers worldwide to shimmy with some zany "message" written on one's front -- particularly not smack dab alongside the universally revered, now-Pope-chummy Bob Dylan (a man so well cocooned that not even his own bass player was allowed to look him in the eye or converse with him directly until after he'd been playing in his band for well over a year, as legend has it). A tad more research revealed Mr. Portnoy was one of just over forty "bodies" hired (after an impressively thorough screening process, I must add) to bop and swoon on stage as Bob sang his big Grammy number. Portnoy admitted as much, along with the more-than-interesting tidbit that, subsequent statements to the contrary from "official channels" notwithstanding, his dance and even his infamous chest message were duly discussed and actually APPROVED with all and with sundry …BEFOREHAND. "All they asked was I change the spelling a bit," he said the following morning. "You know, so it wouldn’t be quite so OBVIOUS." Hmmm. Obvious it was not. Unless you're either some jiggysome Harlem homebody and/or vanity license plate buff, you’d probably never think to disassemble and read PHONETICALLY the words "Soy" and "Bomb." If you DID, the "message" then becomes somewhat clearer: SO Y BOMB. Or, more obvious still, SO WHY BOMB. "So, Why Bomb?" Hah! I was even asking myself that the very week before, during our military's most recent game of footsie with that supremely evil dastardly rotten very bad guy Saddam Hussein. So then, I guess it seems Michael's message DID go out: We TV viewers just had to think a bit about it first. Of course! Ahh, but consider the juxtaposition again: "TV viewers." "Think." What's terribly WRONG with that picture? Well then, I guess, not too many people DID get it. Or then again -- were they SUPPOSED to? But, while we’re onto the subject, just who ARE this mysterious "they" Michael spoke of? With whom he apparently arranged and choreographed -- right down to the spelling on his chest, so it seems -- this subliminal little anti-fake-war slogan? My repeated calls to the Grammy Committee, and even their governing body The National Academy of Recorded Arts and Sciences, Inc., went un-returned. Then, smack dab in the middle of this game of "I Say, You Don't Say" with some of the most powerful receptionists in the music industry, the March 13 issue of Entertainment Weekly magazine published a half-page story (complete with three full-color photos) of "Michael and Bob's "duet." Beneath the witty headline "Bombs Away" ran a nine-question interview with the Man o the Moment Hisself, Michael Portnoy. Good work, Entertainment Weekly! But what's this? No mention whatsoever of "So Why Bomb" here -- just plugs for the Soy Growers of America and a well-deserved swipe at Shawn Colvin. BAD work, Entertainment Weekly! Interestingly, an oblique reference IS made to the fact that Michael was, quote, "hired to stand behind" Bob. But sweet NOTHING is reported about discussing the chest-sloganeering PRIOR to broadcast with the powers that may very well be. Huh. Oh well, maybe that was purely an editorial decision (readers of E.W.-type rags being supposedly even more attention-challenged than the average television viewer). So a quick call to Entertainment Weekly was made. No reply, of course. Well, I DID mention Purr Magazine, but Hey Wait! I got a pal who works in Production at this very zine: I’ll have HIM check out what happened to the REST of the "Bombs Away" article! I called him at work. Message was apparently relayed. Guess what? My pal was that very day suddenly relieved of his long-standing post at Entertainment Weekly (a wholly owned subsidiary of Time Inc., it sez here): Seems the complete, unpurged, unedited Portnoy interview transcript has now fallen into the very same black hole Oswald’s prison scribblings and the TWA Flight 800 cockpit tape have irretrievably disappeared through. Damn! Where’s Oliver Stone now that we REALLY need him? "On location," it seems (yep, I tried him too!) Getting more desperate still, I instigated a detailed anagramatical analysis of the magic words "Soy Bomb" and even "Bob Dylan," but came up with precious little in the way of clues (…didja know if you scramble the letters in Bob’s name you get the words "By a blond" and, more revealing still I betcha, "Bland boy"?) (all I could come up with for "Soy bomb" was "My boobs," but I'm a lonely guy, what can I tell ya?) Fearlessly intrepid online reporter that I am (and deadline barreling forever closer), I decided to go for broke and head straight to the source: Manhattan Directory Assistance. "Michael Portnoy's number, please." 75 cents later and I got it. I dialed it. I got a machine that said "Sorry, Bob" beep! Nyuk nyuk. But that's okay: just like he did for Entertainment Weekly, Michael called RIGHT BACK: MICHAEL PORTNOY? Yes? THIS IS GARY PIG CALLING FROM "PURR." What? GARY PIG GOLD CALLING. (silence) FROM "PURR MAGAZINE" (quieter still) UH, I AM SPEAKING TO THE MAN FROM THE GRAMMY AWARDS, AM I? Well, I don't know. THIS IS MICHAEL PORTNOY WHO WAS HIRED TO, UM, PERFORM WITH BOB DYLAN AT THIS YEAR'S GRAMMY AWARDS CEREMONY? Your point being? UH, WELL, I AM WRITING A REPORT ON YOUR RECENT ACTIVITIES, AND-- (loud clicking noise begins) HELLO? Yes? ARE YOU STILL THERE MICHAEL? Who? MICHAEL PORTNOY? (very long silence) MICHAEL? Look, I really can't talk with you now. OH? Yes. Listen: I've said alot already, and it could be time soon. TIME? Yes. For us both. I DON'T-- I know you don't. Neither did I until it was too late. PARDON? And now that the message is out, things can never really be the same again. (SILENCE. BUT FROM ME THIS TIME!) You are asking me the things you already know, are you not? I DON'T-- And the answer really is right in front of you. Not in those stupid magazine articles. YOU MEAN "ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY?" And the word did get out, and the message did get across, and the work is already well underway, or else you wouldn't be calling me right now, you see? NO, I-- Stop it! It's all right in front of you! The whole damn thing is! I'm just a tool, and I functioned well. But I've been used and tossed aside now. Do you see? WELL, I DON'T-- And if you’re not careful, it could happen to you too. To any of you. All of you! I SUPPOSE. If you must. (mutual silences) UM, ANY LAST WORDS YOU'D LIKE TO SHARE WITH ALL OF THE "PURR" READERS? (pause) Yes. Art Garfunkel. ART GARFUNKEL? DIDN'T YOU SEE HIM AT THE GRAMMYS TOO? Art Garfunkel. He is not The Capeman. I... I SEE. Good day now. (click!)
Well then. I don't know about you, but I'm just about ready to run an anagram hunt on Simon and Garfunkel right about now (who, "coincidentally," ALSO recorded for Columbia Records, as does Our Man Bob. And "The Boxer" was actually Paul Simon's metaphorical swipe at all of the "lie-la-lies" that Dylan told the press during HIS first flushes with fame, and Garfunkel's girlfriend Laurie didn't REALLY commit suicide, and...)
Rig Doggy Pal shouted out, "Who killed the Kennedys?" when, after all, it was
the Men in Black.
|
What I AM referring to -- and I know you all saw it too -- was that guy with the
exposed and painted chest bursting through Dylan's band during their "Love Sick"
performance to do that wacky, supposedly impromptu alterna-frug until the
Grammy Police came and hauled his shakin' butt clear off the stage, that is.
Yeah, yeah, pretty funny, right? Livened up the dull ol' ceremony for a
minute or so, didn't it? I was even faintly amused, and Bob certainly
looked typically bemused for about half a verse or so.
