Bob Dylan's "Theme Time Radio Hour"

"Take a trip to the land of magic radio.
With music hand-selected from his personal collection,
Bob Dylan takes you to places only he can.
Listen as Bob Dylan weaves his own brand of radio
with themes, dreams and schemes."

If you've seen my one-man-show THE TOP TEN THOUSAND OF ALL TIME, you know how much I love radio - not commercial radio, which drives me nuts, but the best of radio, what radio could be. The platonic ideal of radio. That show was basically written as an act of total self-indulgence: I never thought it would be performed, but for a few days I indulged the fantasy of having my own late-night radio show where I could play exactly what I wanted, and T10 is what came out.

Well, Bob Dylan is doing what I dreamt of doing, with his "Theme Time Radio Hour." My pal Nick pointed me to these marvelous hour-long shows that mix music (not Bob's) with scraps of poetry, clips from movies, and Bob's own idiosyncratic musings. It's broadcast on something called XM radio (I don't know what that is, but I'm thinking I oughta find out), but there's also a site where you can download the programs as mp3 files.

I started with "Bible," "Radio" and "Baseball," but you'll have your own faves. Here's a rundown of the episodes to date;
Episode 1: Weather
Episode 2: Mothers
Episode 3: Drinking
Episode 4: Baseball
Episode 5: Coffee
Episode 6: Jail
Episode 7: Fathers
Episode 8: Weddings
Episode 9: Divorce
Episode 10: Summer
Episode 11: Flowers
Episode 12: Cars
Episode 13: Rich Man, Poor Man
Episode 14: The Devil
Episode 15: Eyes
Episode 16: Dogs
Episode 17: Friends & Neighbours
Episode 18: Radio
Episode 19: Bible
Episode 20: Map
Episode 21: School
Episode 22: Telephone
Episode 23: Water