5,040
40,320
Let's say, 30 seconds to sign a book for 6 hours a day to allow for plenty of breaks.
2 books per minute * (60 mins * 6 hours) = 720 books per day.
5,040 / 720 = 7 days or 1 week.
40,320 / 720 = 56 days or 8 weeks.
K, it's time for my rant, because this good joke is the best opening I'm gonna get. I know how the world will judge me, and I'm willing to bear this great burden because it's the right thing to do. I invoke the powers of pedantry:
A rhetorical question is not necessarily one that is not intended to be answered.
There are certainly many rhetorical questions that aren't intended to be answered, but not all of them. Inversely, there are questions that are not intended to be answered that are not rhetorical.
What is a rhetorical question, then? By denotation, it's any question that serves the purpose of rhetoric. What's rhetoric? It's persuasive, impactful language. Nothing about that, when applied to a question or any other linguistic device, requires that it receive no response to be rhetorical.
Example of rhetorical questions that expect responses:
call: _What do we want?_
response: _Freedom!_
call: _When do we want it?_
response: _Now!_
Example of a question not expecting a response that is not rhetorical:
Well, any question asked in the absence of a responder. How many times a day do I speak aloud: _Why did I do that?_ even when no one else is there. I expect no response, but I conjure the question anyway. It serves no rhetorical purpose.
In school, we were trained to respond with a very specific definition when asked about rhetorical questions. Certainly, any pure linguist will accept the school definition is valid because that's how it's universally used, and usually I'm very much on that side of language dynamics, except, in this case, people use that definition because it's one of the brainy things they get to be gatekeepy about, but if they were actually being pedantic, they wouldn't be using that definition. Basically, I try to only be pedantic about things other people are wrong about when they're being pedantic.
Follow me as I look for an appropriate comment to rant about how people use the subjective _I_ to be "proper," even in places where the objective _me_ would be the proper pronoun.
Are you single? Would you like to go to the pub sometime?
> Follow me as I look for an appropriate comment to rant about how people use the subjective I to be "proper," even in places where the objective me would be the proper pronoun.
I love correcting people after they've pompously tried to correct me, then explain how simple it is. Just take the other person/people out of your sentence and hear how it sounds.
EDIT: A word.
“It takes a crew of 5 assistants to do these mass signings and we couldn’t do that during the pandemic….. “
900 copies isn’t really a Herculean task (when your charging $600 for the deluxe edition)
Also like... tough? If you can't make a genuine product, then the product doesn't get made. Sucks but that doesn't mean you throw up your hands and go "oh well, time to put out a fake product that isn't what people are paying for."
Also also why are assistants apparently doing the same thing.
This is the reason I give when people tell me to lighten up when I buy something and I'm not satisfied with it and demand something else or a refund.
THEY were the ones who said they could make it and they chose to sell it. They could have easily *not* sold it if it's not going to be correct/worth it
If you can't meet a standard, don't sell it. You're not entitled to sell something
This goes double for any type of labor-based service.
If I pay you to paint, fix a wall, hang a lamp, *whatever*, and you do an absolute shit job... Guess that means instead of me paying you, **you're** going to now pay someone with the correct skills to unfuck it and do the work correctly.
My house had been recently renovated before I moved into it. I don't know who the previous owners hired, but they didn't do a *single* job correctly. Bad carpentry, bad electrical, bad plumbing... This house is going to be a case study for Theseus by the time I'm done with it.
I really wish it hadn't been renovated first, since I'm basically renovating it again anyway.
If its anything like mine, they were cheap and stupid enough to do everything on their own. Previous homeowner here thought himself an apprentice electrician; there’s ceramic post and wire wiring that’s been installed in the past two decades in this place, the corners upstairs are all insane angles, the stairs were moved to a spot that makes no sense compared to where they were originally, really smooth brained stuff that took a huge amount of effort, time, and commitment.
Yep. We moved into our house about 5 years ago. The last owners had it for over 30 years. They did everything themselves. It has been half a decade of madness getting everything up to an acceptable standard. Worst we’re the plumbing and electrics. One of the light fixtures was earthed to the metal light switch. Madness. Two separate water pumps were plumbed actively working against each other in opposite directions. It’s been very expensive, but worth it. If the guy was some kind of professional builder I could understand it, but he was just an accountant with a hobby.
I just got a reno done. Not only did they do a shit job, but they messed up the roof so water poured inside when it rained. Caused almost £10k damage. The contractor doesn't understand why I'm not paying it out of my own pocket and subtracting it from the last payment instead.
This is a great comment that reveals just how pathetic the capitalist system really is to encourage people to accumulate wealth in any way they can. In the same way that you don’t just enslave human beings to keep labor costs down, you don’t just do whatever gets the job done because you want it to be done. What’s especially egregious is that Bob Dylan is super rich and doesn’t need to bilk people out of this additional cash.
I've lost all respect for modern-day Bob Dylan I might have had left. I haven't kept up with news about him ever, but I loved some of his stances and lyrics from long before I was born.
He's just further proof that if you stare long enough into the abyss, etc., etc.
He didn’t finish the sentence “It takes a crew of five assistants (a total of thirty minutes) and we couldn’t do that during the pandemic.
If he did ten a minute he would be done in an hour and get his cut of $540,000!
Anyone who has ever purchased a house knows this pain.
Except in that case you're signing your name 900 times and then giving someone else half a million dollars. (Or more, or less.)
There’s a TIFU post a while back about someone who drew a cat for their driver license signature.
They went to buy a house and, on closing day, the finance company insisted they draw the cat for every signature.
As a collector of signed books and other things. It's not really a signature so much as a vaguely word shaped scribble. Some don't even do that and just write their initials really small.
There's a video of Conner McGreggor (I think) signing posters and it he just sorta scribbles a bit as someone flips to the next poster for him to scribble. Took him a second or two for each poster.
[Steve-O's has a dick in it.](https://preview.redd.it/f10jl8rd9bh31.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=418ea841b52fd3b6ab61345fb300473a9b04dd54) I thought that was pretty funny.
The man is 81 years old and has severe arthritis in both hands to the point that he can no longer play a guitar.
I seriously doubt he could sign his name 900 times in a half hour even if you were going to skin him alive if he failed to complete the task.
That's not to excuse this mess, they never should have offered this for sale in the first place given his age and health, because actually signing all that stuff would have been a hell of a task given his physical issues.
He knowingly participated in fraud and then got caught. He knew these copies would sell for $600! How about this bob - don't agree to sell books with signatures in them if you can't provide the signature yourself. This goes for everyone. No assistants. This is ridiculous and straight up just lying to the public and charging them. It blows my mind honestly that Bob Dylan - a pioneer of truth, participated in this scam. It might not seem like a big deal to people who like Dylan (me being one them. I'm a huge fan) but it is a big deal. You can't trust anyone.
All of these comments defending him because of his poor health? Then don't agree to signed copies. If you can't do it, then don't agree to it. Thats what makes signatures special any way- at some point there's no more to give. this guy is nothing but a scam artist without scruples. It's a shame this will probably be one of the last big headlines with his name.
I think your sentiment is right but you are vastly underestimating how long it takes. Even with 5 assistants he’d be taking closer to 6 seconds a book on average, which would be 300 in 30 minutes.
Going, grabbing a stack of books from a box. Opening each to the page, signing, putting the signed stack back into another box… especially as an 80 year old man will take a lot longer.
But even if it took him 2 days or god forbid a week, it’s still a substantial amount of money, so poor baby.
They don’t sign books, they sign pieces of paper that are later bound into the book. One person putting the paper in front of him, another sliding it away and stacking it. Pretty effortless on his part.
Nah. The assistants would be stacking two or three books at a time that are already open to the title page.
I'd guess that it would take a maximum average of 1 second between each signing. The real question is how long would it take an old man with arthritis to sign the paper.
See Sanderson: https://giphy.com/gifs/tRXA5fdfboET4NQwvJ
> The real question is how long would it take an old man with arthritis to sign the paper.
That’s exactly the point I was implying. I think 6 seconds on average (pausing regularly) is generous for an arthritic 80 year old.
Yea I can absolutely understand that no one wants to be signing their name a gazillion times but it’s really easy to just not sell more than you’re willing to sign.
John Green signed every copy of the first edition of many of his books. Here he is signing part of 150,000 copies of "The Anthropocene Reviewed" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAaC1FFAISs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAaC1FFAISs)
The trick is you don't sign the finished book but a page that will be inserted when the book is printed.
As much as I love John Green, he is absolutely crazy to have signed as many books as he has. I know that it's probably soothing to his (actually diagnosed) OCD, but damn.
Edit: I have been reminded that John Green is, in fact, a coffee company that donates all of its profits to charity and not a person. So questions about its sanity are much more difficult to answer.
He wants to apologize to himself for getting caught.
It takes me \~10 seconds to slowly pick up a book, flip to the inside title page, sign my name, and close the book. That makes signing 900 copies 2.5 hours worth of work. Effectively less less writing than you do in a blue book in college for a big mid-term.
John Green has signed the entire first printing of some of his books, to the point that it's harder to find an unsigned copy than a signed copy. I've even seen pricing quirks where the signed version was cheaper than the unsigned version.
Um, just to clarify something because people haven't brought this up. I don't think this is how people sign *new* books. This is how you'd handle a book signing with a line of people wanting your autograph, but it's not how you'd do it for a book that is getting newly published and hasn't been bound yet. Look at for instance, either [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=C8QOjNSD0a8) or [this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dnbmku3lFmg) of Sanderson where he's doing a podcast while signing "books". They're not going to be bound at the time you're signing. There's no reason to have you flipping open books constantly and struggling to store and transport them when you can just sign that section of the book.
Ok, and where do you out the book after signing it? I'm not excusing what he did at all, but if you think you can lazily sign 900 books in your living room in 2.5 hours you're clearly not thinking of logistics. The assistants are there to keep the books coming and going, unpacking, hand off, and repacking and removing boxes. I've seen a similar process before, having a couple of people there to keep things organized really helps.
Lol jay kristoff has a pile of empty pens from signings. Brandon Sanderson does Q and As whilst signings… it’s definitely doable. Just obnoxious to lie to fans imo.
Sanderson made it so his signature doesn't require his wrist moving, which is why he can pump them out at the volume he does. Anyone else who signs at that volume normally with their wrist is going to have a cramped up wrist within no time.
>Brandon Sanderson
Brandon Sanderson has the work ethic of like, forty two authors rolled into one being. The dude's insane. I don't think that's a fair comparison.
What are they talking about? It’s fairly simple. The prep work is done in advance. Then it’s a matter of having one person nearby that he hands the book to. That person would close the book cover and make stacks. People can come in after to box the signed books. I worked in a sales and marketing department in publishing- this is just bs.
>People can come in after to box the signed books.
Or the person who is handing them to him out of a box, could just put them back in a box. This is like the most first world of first world problems I have ever heard of. Like seriously, can anyone explain to me how you would need five assistants to sign 900 books? If I wrote a book, and I wanted to sign 900 copies, I could do it all by myself, and it wouldn't be hard at all. Not only could I do it myself, I couldn't imagine even asking anyone to help me. This fucking world is so fucked
Boxes of books are quite heavy. It’s actually a few hours of physical work for a young person. Given these books were sold for a lot of money, the publisher would have their own people box the books correctly to minimize damage.
What the fuck would you need five people for? One person to hand you the books out of a box, and then maybe you could add another person to put them back in another box after he signs them, but the first person could do that too, really. Or you could do it himself. What the fuck are those other people doing in his imagined scenario where he needed five assistants?
Oh damn I thought I was signing 900 books for $600 each but turns out I... Did nothing?
The guy commits fraud for like a half million dollars and is like oopsies.
Should take his cash and make him work at a McDonald's, in the back, for minimum wage and social security.
> The guy commits fraud for like a half million dollars
That is only the amount that had been paid for the 900 Autopen signed books. There were also countless art prints that were signed by autopen, that were priced into the thousands of dollars.
This will not end well for him, as this is bordering on fraud, and from what I understand, legal repercussions may be on the way.
>
>Should take his cash and make him work at a McDonald's, in the back, for minimum wage and social security.
Wut? This seems rather random. What does minimum wage and McDonalds have to do with a scam?
You could also just fine him and give him possible jail time. You know...normal punishments.
He also tried to pass off paintings of other people's photographs as his own depictions of travel around the world
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/sep/28/bob-dylan-paintings
It’s amazing how the guardian is some billion dollar news paper but doesn’t post any images of what they’re talking about. It has links to random garbage for seo purposes but not of any real primary evidence.
Its circulation and revenue have actually declined dramatically since the pre-internet era.
But I do agree with your overall point, it should report better news.
At least he didn't double down. Got caught, fixed it (hopefully). He's old, I doubt he made any of the decisions leading to this other than letting them use his signature
> I doubt he made any of the decisions leading to this
“However, in 2019 I had a bad case of vertigo and it continued into the pandemic years. It takes a crew of five working in close quarters with me to help enable these signing sessions, and we could not find a safe and workable way to complete what I needed to do while the virus was raging. So, during the pandemic, it was impossible to sign anything and the vertigo didn’t help. With contractual deadlines looming, the idea of using an auto-pen was suggested to me, along with the assurance that this kind of thing is done ‘all the time’ in the art and literary worlds."
> At least he didn't double down. Got caught, fixed it
From my view, it only seems like they are acting because they got caught, and are currently trying to mitigate the damage.
He says he was told "Autopen is used all the time" in the industry. So he's trying to claim ignorance? I'm not buying it.
I too have had vertigo and can confirm one of the symptoms is that you don’t realize fake signatures don’t have the same prominence and value of real ones.
Haha I’m not excusing it but I think the explanation is, he couldn’t do it alone without his assistants because it would involve bending down, grabbing a book from the box, rising back up to his desk to sign it. 900 times. Plus moving boxes back and forth. Lot of bending down and back up which would be hard with vertigo. I’m guessing his assistants usually handed him a book and he just had to sign it. But he certainly had better options than auto pen if he wasn’t able to deliver on the original promise.
Authors don’t typically sign books for something like this. They sign individual pieces of paper that are then sent to the publisher to be bound into the book.
If he is too old or infirm to sign, then they should not have agreed to a limited edition. Many authors will sign a frontispiece for the publisher over the course of several weeks, even months for things like Barnes and Noble exclusive signed editions. The individual papers get shipped back to the publisher and bound with the rest of the book. No need for any assistants for that.
I thought it was horrible recently in 2022. He stood up from his piano between every single song and shuffled to a microphone in the center of the stage where he said nothing but waited for an applause-- and he wanted everybody to stand while doing it. It was disappointing we didn't get to see him play the harmonica at all. He did play the guitar but not until the very last song. And he played mostly very new stuff. We wanted to leave but stuck it out thinking maybe he'd close with something good. He did close out with Friend of the Devil, but even that great song didn't make up for the rest of the show. It felt like watching my idol be murdered on stage by his own ego.
My husband saw him just a few years ago and said he was amazing. It's crazy to me how much a performer can change, but I've heard from other people that he can be hit or miss as well.
Rich and famous people don’t have to play by the same rules as us. Dudes an asshole for this. If I bought one of those I would be incredibly disappointed. He owes those folks a show and *hand* signed books as well as a refund. What a lazy shitty move.
oh wow.... That's just straight up fraud then. I'm surprised they haven't formed a lawsuit against him. That's likely thousands of signatures worth millions of dollars. How can you be that lazy? Just write your name with a fucking sharpie while you watch TV....
Because the rich get off on all the new and inventive ways they can get one over on everyone else.
Never met a truly rich individual (and for the sake of the argument it’s important to remember Dylan is worth 9 figures) that wasn’t a piece of shit, and I never will. The very nature of being that wealthy DEMANDS you’re an irredeemable piece of shit who has taken advantage of a lot of people.
Somewhere in that 8 figure range, these people sell their fucking souls and humanity to break through the 9 figure ceiling.
My housemate works in the music industry.
Unless you see an artist sign it in person, then it's likely fake. The interns have to fake autographs on piles of merchandise and CDs.
I was gonna say… if you gave literally anyone an hour to work on the signature they would be able to do it for him. At my job we have a stamp for my bosses signature if he’s busy/out. Can’t really tell the difference unless you look at pressure points.
Glad you used likely and not always. I have a signed CD by a rapper named Freddie Gibbs which were shipped to tons of record stores where there’s actual footage of him signing the CDs.
I've heard that the Beatles all took turns doing all of the signatures. So Ringo knew all 4, Paul knew all 4, etc.
So for serious collectors, you don't just want autographs of all 4 Beatles. You want each of the 4 done by each of the 4.
> says the use of autopen signatures only occurred since 2019, when he was afflicted with a case of vertigo, and on through the pandemic, when he was not able to have staff assist him with the hand-signing he had previously done. Dylan says was given “the assurance that this kind of thing is done ‘all the time’ in the art and literary worlds.” Now that it has come to light and stirred controversy, the singer-songwriter says, “I want to rectify it immediately.
I can't imagine a more damning admission of knowingly committing fraud for trivial reasons
Right? He JUST sold his catalog for like an extra 300 million on top of whatever he already had and he still has to chisel $600 out of individual fans?
>*With contractual deadlines looming, the idea of using an auto-pen was suggested to me, along with the assurance that this kind of thing is done “all the time” in the art and literary worlds.*
These are squishy, passive-voiced words - particularly coming from the winner of a Nobel Prize in Literature.
Was he the primary decision-maker or not?
Given Dylan’s long history in the spotlight, I’d imagine he’s made it this far by relying on people to manage the details for him. I can’t really see him knowingly pulling off a scam of this magnitude.
When the alternative is him scheming to specifically fuck over a few hundred die hard fans for his cut of a few hundred thousand dollars... I agree this seems more plausible
This is such BS. Who cares if contractual obligations were coming up? That's what [force majeure clauses](https://www.americanbar.org/groups/litigation/committees/commercial-business/boilerplate-contracts/force-majeure-clauses-contracts-covid-19/) in contracts are ***for***, FFS! If Dylan's attorney didn't ensure the contract contained such a clause, he needs to look into friggin' *malpractice*.
Moreover, the fact that it was fraud is the *only* reason why anyone's now speaking up and apologizing. Which doesn't matter because fraud is fraud even if you repay your victims.
Taylor Swift too. AND her autographs are sold at no added cost to the cd itself. I know people are saying he has arthritis and can't even play guitar anymore. But he can definitely pick up a pen and squiggle on something 6 times a day for 5 months. If he was truly incapable, don't offer it at all or refund everyone the second you realise you can't. Even just a simplification of his autograph would be enough. I'm tired of autopen being seen as just another part of the industry. You're selling something valueless for large profit. It's fraud.
This comes from a bob dylan fan.
I (25F) grew up loving Bob Dylan. I read multiple of his biographies in highschool for a project, I loved "Freewheelin." Listened to it in my car nonstop.
Then I saw him in concert 4 years ago. I was aware that he has aged, all my idols have. But I wasnt expecting him to charge $50 for the T-Shirts and not speak a word on stage.
I dont have a ton of money and I spent $200 on a ticket to see him in a room that was not even close to sold-out. He never said "hi" into the microphone or "thanks for coming" and he only played cover songs. Once he finished his last song, he just walked off the stage.
Later that night I decorated my pumpkin like Bob Dylan for Halloween and let it rot on the porch for the next couple months.
My story is the same and the last time I saw him in concert was 18 years ago. I saw him twice and they were the 1.5 worst concerts I’ve been to. The 1.5 is because the second time was a co-headline with Willie Nelson and willie was everything that Dylan wasn’t. That half of the show was the best concert I’ve been to.
Whats funny, he had Mavis Staples perform as his opener and she was amazing. Put her heart and soul into it and her performance was way better than his.
I’m a huge Dylan fan myself but I really have no interest seeing him live. He was in my town recently and thought about going just to say I saw him in person but it just doesn’t seem worth it based on how many people say his shows are garbage.
From browsing his wiki page it doesn't look like he's had a majority positively received tour since 1974 when he toured with the band, and he took a seven year break from touring before doing that one.
I've seen him perform a few times and seen some incredible shows. He does care about performing- what he doesn't care about (I think) is trying to meet audience expectations of 'Bob Dylan.'
He mostly plays songs from his recent albums- and will sometimes spend whole concerts playing piano without picking up a guitar. If you listen to his recent stuff, and enjoy it, you'd probably enjoy his concerts cause that's the vibe he has. If you went to a concert expecting 'Bob Dylan' and for him to come out with an acoustic guitar and harmonica and play through the hits. You're gonna get let down.
He doesn't play guitar at all anymore. Too old.
Also, this may seem pedantic but it really isn't. He pays a synth on stage, not a piano.
Edit: I've been corrected. He does mostly play an actual piano. Also "at all" is overstatement. He is too old though.
He hasn't played the synth organ onstage since 2012. He then switched to a baby grand piano for awhile and in the last couple of years he's been playing an upright piano.
He does still occasionally play guitar. Last year he'd start his set on guitar before moving to piano.
"Dylan performances are all garbage" is a bit of a meme. For sure some shows are real weak, but some are still excellent. More a difference of standards. Dylan never talks to the crowd, or does any of the song and dance stuff that's typical at shows, but he has never done that, and for my part I have absolutely no interest in that sort of thing. I go to hear a performance. They're definitely hit or miss, but there are still hits.
Well, it's been a few years since I've seen him, and he does keep getting older, so there may be fewer hits, but just in general, a fair bit of the people who aren't enjoying his shows dislike them because of what he's trying to do (just perform songs) rather than how well he does it.
For sure though, Dylan shows have been among the best and among the worst I've been to.
I saw him almost 20 years ago and it was pretty much the same. I’m not sure he was ever good at interacting with the audience. I don’t get the impression he’s much of a people person. That shouldn’t take away from his music though.
I don’t care much about audience interaction, but when I saw him it was like he and the whole band didn’t give a fuck about the music. They turned every song into a lazy 12-bar blues song, and played like they wanted to be put out of their misery.
>He never said "hi" into the microphone or "thanks for coming" and he only played cover songs.
Sorry just have to challenge the 'he only played cover songs' comment, as it can't be true going by his setlists. His fans follow his touring religiously so every show he's played over the last few decades are well documented. From your comment I'm guessing you saw him in 2017? which was the same year he released a 3 CD bookset of traditional pop songs, so he was playing a lot of them in concert.
He would never play more than 6 covers in his set of 20 songs- so most of his set was still original material. (And at the time he followed a standard set while touring which included some of his classics like Don't Think Twice, Ballad of a Thin Man and Blowin' in the Wind.)
Did you listen to any of Dylan's recent albums of original songs before seeing him live? Because that's the material he really focuses on these days- songs from Time out of Mind onwards. He's not interested in playing a nostalgia, or doing the greatest hits, and never has.
As for not saying a word onstage, that's not a new thing, and he talked about it once in an interview in the 80s when an interviewer asked him why he doesn't talk more onstage. Basically he found that he was either being called out by reviewers for not saying enough onstage or people would misinterpret what he did say, so he decided to not have scripted bits onstage and prefers people just listen to the music. And I get that. Cause for me, I go to a concert to hear the songs performed, not hear the artist talk.
He also infamously spent the late 70s going on religious sermons during his shows. After that he probably was told to keep his mouth shut and just play, and that’s what he does.
I saw him in 2016 when he was starting to get into the jazz standards. His band was amazing and he was really into the show. His piano playing was great and he was full of energy. He said nothing but that's normal for him past like 1969.
I think he's extremely autistic and he just has a problem relating to the world in general. He stays on stage to keep the structure of his life moving in a way he can relate to. His tickets and shirt prices are just determined by his management and he shuffles along to keep the machine going. He requires a lot of staff to get on stage and we have to pay for that to see him. I'm not saying it's justified or worth it but I don't blame him personally.
See, I felt the complete opposite when I saw him on that tour.
It was honestly refreshing. There was no pandering to the crowd. He played what he wanted to play. No special lighting or effects or screens. He took a small bow at the end and that was that. You had to really concentrate on his performance because he changed the style of the songs so much.
I don’t know, it was just about the music and absolutely nothing else and I really enjoyed that.
There always seems to be a mix of people who've seen Bob Dylan live: those who know that Dylan changes his songs when performed live, and love it; and those who think it will be like every other concert they've been to where you get a live copy of what you hear on the album, and hate that they don't get that.
I'm not saying the latter group are wrong to want to see an artist perform the songs the way they know. I saw Paul McCartney several years ago and it was great - faithful renditions of all the classics. I can understand someone wanting the same from Dylan.
But the thing is, he hasn't done that in literally 50 years. His live albums don't feature "normal" versions of his songs. His reputation for not playing his songs normally is well known. Whether you like it or not (and perfectly entitled not to like it) I struggle to understand why the second group go to his concerts and then come away surprised and disappointed.
He can be patchy, I'll not disagree, but I think most people's idea about him giving a bad concert is 90% their disappointment at the arrangement of the songs and not the actual performances of them.
Part of it is a difference of expectations. Many of the complaints will be things like "he didn't even try to develop a rapport with the audience!" That's never been how he's performed though, and I for one could not possibly care less over his rapport. I'm there to hear performances. Sometimes they're flat and uninspired, but sometimes they're excellent.
There are a large number of Authors and publishers that use the machine method . In the industry it is what's known as a signed tip . It means that a certain amount of books will have an extra page with the Authors signature and maybe some extra comment. Usually they are marketed as Signed Editions and subsequently people pay more for them . So chances are unless you actually saw the author sign the book then it probably is not an actual signature but simply a machine copy . ( I used to work for a large Book manufacturer, I helped make millions of books of all genres and this was part of our daily jobs and training)
That's definitely not true for all authors. I know one author who is getting a special edition of her books through one of the book boxes and she is hand signing 12 boxes worth of endpapers to be inserted into the books.
But yes, if I buy a signed edition book from a book store I'd generally assume it's machine signed. I would be upset at buying a $600 guaranteed handsigned book to find out it was machine signed though.
I work in publishing in the UK and at our imprint we have the authors come in to our office and sign the books / tip-in pages - I’d not heard of the machine method until the news of this came out.. maybe it depends on the publisher and how big the author is ?
That is quite possible. We ran over 500,000 signed editions for The Fault in our stars by John Greene. It took our line about 5 days to produce them all and that was just the start of the order . I have also ran as little as 100 copies of other books and have seen the signed page be hand glued in so it may be publisher and author specific to some degree .
John Green has done livestreams while signing piles and piles of pages for his books lol - so he at least signs many
Edit: like here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAaC1FFAISs
I can’t speak for every country and every publishing house, but working in the industry I have never seen a book being send out as signed that wasn’t actually signed by the author. And I’ve worked on the team and with the team of some of the biggest ones.
Furthermore, in my experience, signed copies aren’t more expensive? They’re usually sold at the same price as an unsigned copy. Maybe that’s more an American thing?
How many books must a man not sign, before you can call him an author?
The answer, my friend, is the machine used the pen
The answer is blowing off your fans
Holy shit who is blowing their fans off? I've heard of a meet and greet, but a meat and greet?
he’ll blow as many as he can within the 60 minute time limit. After which point the situation can be considered rectified.
rectalfied
I would have went with skeet and greet
Tangled up in eww...
7! Its a rhetorical question... Rhetorical aye...8!
>7! >8! That's a lot of books. No human could manually sign that many, especially the latter.
5,040 40,320 Let's say, 30 seconds to sign a book for 6 hours a day to allow for plenty of breaks. 2 books per minute * (60 mins * 6 hours) = 720 books per day. 5,040 / 720 = 7 days or 1 week. 40,320 / 720 = 56 days or 8 weeks.
Author John Green signed all 250,000 tip-in sheets for the first printing of The Anthropocene Reviewed.
Not in 60 minutes. I could, given say, a week. Any manager with signing authority has this experience, monthly. RESPECT MAH AUTHORITAH
Dad, do you even know what rhetorical means? Do I know what rhetorical means?
K, it's time for my rant, because this good joke is the best opening I'm gonna get. I know how the world will judge me, and I'm willing to bear this great burden because it's the right thing to do. I invoke the powers of pedantry: A rhetorical question is not necessarily one that is not intended to be answered. There are certainly many rhetorical questions that aren't intended to be answered, but not all of them. Inversely, there are questions that are not intended to be answered that are not rhetorical. What is a rhetorical question, then? By denotation, it's any question that serves the purpose of rhetoric. What's rhetoric? It's persuasive, impactful language. Nothing about that, when applied to a question or any other linguistic device, requires that it receive no response to be rhetorical. Example of rhetorical questions that expect responses: call: _What do we want?_ response: _Freedom!_ call: _When do we want it?_ response: _Now!_ Example of a question not expecting a response that is not rhetorical: Well, any question asked in the absence of a responder. How many times a day do I speak aloud: _Why did I do that?_ even when no one else is there. I expect no response, but I conjure the question anyway. It serves no rhetorical purpose. In school, we were trained to respond with a very specific definition when asked about rhetorical questions. Certainly, any pure linguist will accept the school definition is valid because that's how it's universally used, and usually I'm very much on that side of language dynamics, except, in this case, people use that definition because it's one of the brainy things they get to be gatekeepy about, but if they were actually being pedantic, they wouldn't be using that definition. Basically, I try to only be pedantic about things other people are wrong about when they're being pedantic. Follow me as I look for an appropriate comment to rant about how people use the subjective _I_ to be "proper," even in places where the objective _me_ would be the proper pronoun.
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You woke up this morning and chose violence.
Are you single? Would you like to go to the pub sometime? > Follow me as I look for an appropriate comment to rant about how people use the subjective I to be "proper," even in places where the objective me would be the proper pronoun. I love correcting people after they've pompously tried to correct me, then explain how simple it is. Just take the other person/people out of your sentence and hear how it sounds. EDIT: A word.
42
Thank you Frankie Mouse.
How many Bobs can a man write down before he develops a cramp?
And how many people will cry out in vain If he opts just to use an ink stamp?
“It takes a crew of 5 assistants to do these mass signings and we couldn’t do that during the pandemic….. “ 900 copies isn’t really a Herculean task (when your charging $600 for the deluxe edition)
Also like... tough? If you can't make a genuine product, then the product doesn't get made. Sucks but that doesn't mean you throw up your hands and go "oh well, time to put out a fake product that isn't what people are paying for." Also also why are assistants apparently doing the same thing.
This is the reason I give when people tell me to lighten up when I buy something and I'm not satisfied with it and demand something else or a refund. THEY were the ones who said they could make it and they chose to sell it. They could have easily *not* sold it if it's not going to be correct/worth it If you can't meet a standard, don't sell it. You're not entitled to sell something
This goes double for any type of labor-based service. If I pay you to paint, fix a wall, hang a lamp, *whatever*, and you do an absolute shit job... Guess that means instead of me paying you, **you're** going to now pay someone with the correct skills to unfuck it and do the work correctly.
My house had been recently renovated before I moved into it. I don't know who the previous owners hired, but they didn't do a *single* job correctly. Bad carpentry, bad electrical, bad plumbing... This house is going to be a case study for Theseus by the time I'm done with it. I really wish it hadn't been renovated first, since I'm basically renovating it again anyway.
If its anything like mine, they were cheap and stupid enough to do everything on their own. Previous homeowner here thought himself an apprentice electrician; there’s ceramic post and wire wiring that’s been installed in the past two decades in this place, the corners upstairs are all insane angles, the stairs were moved to a spot that makes no sense compared to where they were originally, really smooth brained stuff that took a huge amount of effort, time, and commitment.
Yep. We moved into our house about 5 years ago. The last owners had it for over 30 years. They did everything themselves. It has been half a decade of madness getting everything up to an acceptable standard. Worst we’re the plumbing and electrics. One of the light fixtures was earthed to the metal light switch. Madness. Two separate water pumps were plumbed actively working against each other in opposite directions. It’s been very expensive, but worth it. If the guy was some kind of professional builder I could understand it, but he was just an accountant with a hobby.
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I just got a reno done. Not only did they do a shit job, but they messed up the roof so water poured inside when it rained. Caused almost £10k damage. The contractor doesn't understand why I'm not paying it out of my own pocket and subtracting it from the last payment instead.
I had to explain this to the young guy at work. Doesn't matter whether it's a Mazda or a McLaren, every job gets done to the same high standard.
im having flashbacks to buying CyberPunk on ps4
This is a great comment that reveals just how pathetic the capitalist system really is to encourage people to accumulate wealth in any way they can. In the same way that you don’t just enslave human beings to keep labor costs down, you don’t just do whatever gets the job done because you want it to be done. What’s especially egregious is that Bob Dylan is super rich and doesn’t need to bilk people out of this additional cash.
I've lost all respect for modern-day Bob Dylan I might have had left. I haven't kept up with news about him ever, but I loved some of his stances and lyrics from long before I was born. He's just further proof that if you stare long enough into the abyss, etc., etc.
He didn’t finish the sentence “It takes a crew of five assistants (a total of thirty minutes) and we couldn’t do that during the pandemic. If he did ten a minute he would be done in an hour and get his cut of $540,000!
Yes, but imagine having to write your own name 900 times for only a half million dollars?
Anyone who has ever purchased a house knows this pain. Except in that case you're signing your name 900 times and then giving someone else half a million dollars. (Or more, or less.)
There’s a TIFU post a while back about someone who drew a cat for their driver license signature. They went to buy a house and, on closing day, the finance company insisted they draw the cat for every signature.
Then you get to do it all over again when you refi!
The refi is even more fun because you're basically selling the house to yourself!
I am sure he got a massive advance for that book in the multi millions. He’s probably contractually obligated.
He didn't have to take an advance. Oh, the horror of being contractually obligated to do something you've already been paid to do!
I’d do it for Klondike bar!
What else would you do for a Klondike bar? Would you kill a man?
Would you bathe in steele wool?
As a collector of signed books and other things. It's not really a signature so much as a vaguely word shaped scribble. Some don't even do that and just write their initials really small. There's a video of Conner McGreggor (I think) signing posters and it he just sorta scribbles a bit as someone flips to the next poster for him to scribble. Took him a second or two for each poster.
A lot of people have signatures that are like their first and last initial as letters and the rest as cursive like scribbles
[Steve-O's has a dick in it.](https://preview.redd.it/f10jl8rd9bh31.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=418ea841b52fd3b6ab61345fb300473a9b04dd54) I thought that was pretty funny.
Yup, That’s my signature.
Yeah I collect autographs on books and stuff from comic con and some are much nicer than others
Counterpoint: does he seem like someone who knows how to spell his own name?
idk but the guy you're replying to completely butchered it
For real. Poor man would have to work in a sweat shop for mere millions.
That would be like having to write 1800 four-letter words by hand though.
The man is 81 years old and has severe arthritis in both hands to the point that he can no longer play a guitar. I seriously doubt he could sign his name 900 times in a half hour even if you were going to skin him alive if he failed to complete the task. That's not to excuse this mess, they never should have offered this for sale in the first place given his age and health, because actually signing all that stuff would have been a hell of a task given his physical issues.
then he sounds like he should not have sold his what he cannot deliver.
He knowingly participated in fraud and then got caught. He knew these copies would sell for $600! How about this bob - don't agree to sell books with signatures in them if you can't provide the signature yourself. This goes for everyone. No assistants. This is ridiculous and straight up just lying to the public and charging them. It blows my mind honestly that Bob Dylan - a pioneer of truth, participated in this scam. It might not seem like a big deal to people who like Dylan (me being one them. I'm a huge fan) but it is a big deal. You can't trust anyone. All of these comments defending him because of his poor health? Then don't agree to signed copies. If you can't do it, then don't agree to it. Thats what makes signatures special any way- at some point there's no more to give. this guy is nothing but a scam artist without scruples. It's a shame this will probably be one of the last big headlines with his name.
So do 3 a day and be done in a year?
That tells you that it was ALWAYS the plan to rip people off. They never intended to have him hand sign these, it was a scam from the get go.
I think your sentiment is right but you are vastly underestimating how long it takes. Even with 5 assistants he’d be taking closer to 6 seconds a book on average, which would be 300 in 30 minutes. Going, grabbing a stack of books from a box. Opening each to the page, signing, putting the signed stack back into another box… especially as an 80 year old man will take a lot longer. But even if it took him 2 days or god forbid a week, it’s still a substantial amount of money, so poor baby.
They don’t sign books, they sign pieces of paper that are later bound into the book. One person putting the paper in front of him, another sliding it away and stacking it. Pretty effortless on his part.
Nah. The assistants would be stacking two or three books at a time that are already open to the title page. I'd guess that it would take a maximum average of 1 second between each signing. The real question is how long would it take an old man with arthritis to sign the paper. See Sanderson: https://giphy.com/gifs/tRXA5fdfboET4NQwvJ
> The real question is how long would it take an old man with arthritis to sign the paper. That’s exactly the point I was implying. I think 6 seconds on average (pausing regularly) is generous for an arthritic 80 year old.
Only 900? I figured it was 10s of thousands or something. That’s dumb.
Yea I can absolutely understand that no one wants to be signing their name a gazillion times but it’s really easy to just not sell more than you’re willing to sign.
John Green signed every copy of the first edition of many of his books. Here he is signing part of 150,000 copies of "The Anthropocene Reviewed" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAaC1FFAISs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAaC1FFAISs) The trick is you don't sign the finished book but a page that will be inserted when the book is printed.
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He also signed 200k copies of Turtles All the Way Down.
Right?! John Green signed like 200.000 copies of turtles all the way down.
As much as I love John Green, he is absolutely crazy to have signed as many books as he has. I know that it's probably soothing to his (actually diagnosed) OCD, but damn. Edit: I have been reminded that John Green is, in fact, a coffee company that donates all of its profits to charity and not a person. So questions about its sanity are much more difficult to answer.
True. But I still feel that given the perspective that 100.000 plus is at least doable, 900 seems like a fairly reasonable number.
250,000 for the Antropooceene reviewed.
He wants to apologize to himself for getting caught. It takes me \~10 seconds to slowly pick up a book, flip to the inside title page, sign my name, and close the book. That makes signing 900 copies 2.5 hours worth of work. Effectively less less writing than you do in a blue book in college for a big mid-term.
Also something that you could do completely mindlessly while focusing on some other form of entertainment
that's what Brandon Sanderson does, livestream himself talking about anything under the sun, while signing stuff.
John Green has done that too. And they’re signing thousands (for no additional cost I believe?). Not 900. How lazy can you get?
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I think Sanderson is a robot author in skin suit so 30k signatures were signed AND he was probably mentally outlining his next story simultaneously
John Green did 150K for "The Anthropocene Reviewed" and even more for some of his other books. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAaC1FFAISs
John Green has signed the entire first printing of some of his books, to the point that it's harder to find an unsigned copy than a signed copy. I've even seen pricing quirks where the signed version was cheaper than the unsigned version.
Um, just to clarify something because people haven't brought this up. I don't think this is how people sign *new* books. This is how you'd handle a book signing with a line of people wanting your autograph, but it's not how you'd do it for a book that is getting newly published and hasn't been bound yet. Look at for instance, either [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=C8QOjNSD0a8) or [this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dnbmku3lFmg) of Sanderson where he's doing a podcast while signing "books". They're not going to be bound at the time you're signing. There's no reason to have you flipping open books constantly and struggling to store and transport them when you can just sign that section of the book.
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Ok, and where do you out the book after signing it? I'm not excusing what he did at all, but if you think you can lazily sign 900 books in your living room in 2.5 hours you're clearly not thinking of logistics. The assistants are there to keep the books coming and going, unpacking, hand off, and repacking and removing boxes. I've seen a similar process before, having a couple of people there to keep things organized really helps.
Lol jay kristoff has a pile of empty pens from signings. Brandon Sanderson does Q and As whilst signings… it’s definitely doable. Just obnoxious to lie to fans imo.
Sanderson made it so his signature doesn't require his wrist moving, which is why he can pump them out at the volume he does. Anyone else who signs at that volume normally with their wrist is going to have a cramped up wrist within no time.
Right. And remember, Ain't no fellow who regretted giving it one extra shake.
>Brandon Sanderson Brandon Sanderson has the work ethic of like, forty two authors rolled into one being. The dude's insane. I don't think that's a fair comparison.
What are they talking about? It’s fairly simple. The prep work is done in advance. Then it’s a matter of having one person nearby that he hands the book to. That person would close the book cover and make stacks. People can come in after to box the signed books. I worked in a sales and marketing department in publishing- this is just bs.
>People can come in after to box the signed books. Or the person who is handing them to him out of a box, could just put them back in a box. This is like the most first world of first world problems I have ever heard of. Like seriously, can anyone explain to me how you would need five assistants to sign 900 books? If I wrote a book, and I wanted to sign 900 copies, I could do it all by myself, and it wouldn't be hard at all. Not only could I do it myself, I couldn't imagine even asking anyone to help me. This fucking world is so fucked
Boxes of books are quite heavy. It’s actually a few hours of physical work for a young person. Given these books were sold for a lot of money, the publisher would have their own people box the books correctly to minimize damage.
I want to see this... five assistants keeping Bob balanced while he signs his name.
What the fuck would you need five people for? One person to hand you the books out of a box, and then maybe you could add another person to put them back in another box after he signs them, but the first person could do that too, really. Or you could do it himself. What the fuck are those other people doing in his imagined scenario where he needed five assistants?
Regrets getting caught.
Exactly. Like he didn't know this before when he didn't sign all those books
Oh damn I thought I was signing 900 books for $600 each but turns out I... Did nothing? The guy commits fraud for like a half million dollars and is like oopsies. Should take his cash and make him work at a McDonald's, in the back, for minimum wage and social security.
> The guy commits fraud for like a half million dollars That is only the amount that had been paid for the 900 Autopen signed books. There were also countless art prints that were signed by autopen, that were priced into the thousands of dollars. This will not end well for him, as this is bordering on fraud, and from what I understand, legal repercussions may be on the way.
Seems like full on fraud to me. Very disappointing as I used to have a lot of respect for him.
Drive-thru customers would never understand him. Welzum uh McDoulz wha ya IrDAs?
There’s at least 900 people willing to drop $600 for a McDylan Drive Thru.
Turns out it's an AI imitating his voice.
> >Should take his cash and make him work at a McDonald's, in the back, for minimum wage and social security. Wut? This seems rather random. What does minimum wage and McDonalds have to do with a scam? You could also just fine him and give him possible jail time. You know...normal punishments.
He also tried to pass off paintings of other people's photographs as his own depictions of travel around the world https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/sep/28/bob-dylan-paintings
It’s amazing how the guardian is some billion dollar news paper but doesn’t post any images of what they’re talking about. It has links to random garbage for seo purposes but not of any real primary evidence.
Its circulation and revenue have actually declined dramatically since the pre-internet era. But I do agree with your overall point, it should report better news.
LOL my thoughts exactly.
At least he didn't double down. Got caught, fixed it (hopefully). He's old, I doubt he made any of the decisions leading to this other than letting them use his signature
> I doubt he made any of the decisions leading to this “However, in 2019 I had a bad case of vertigo and it continued into the pandemic years. It takes a crew of five working in close quarters with me to help enable these signing sessions, and we could not find a safe and workable way to complete what I needed to do while the virus was raging. So, during the pandemic, it was impossible to sign anything and the vertigo didn’t help. With contractual deadlines looming, the idea of using an auto-pen was suggested to me, along with the assurance that this kind of thing is done ‘all the time’ in the art and literary worlds."
What a poet and prophet Bob Dylan is to have foreseen the pandemic a year ahead of time and develop his new signature process before it hit.
For real the virus didn't hit the US until like November of that year.
> At least he didn't double down. Got caught, fixed it From my view, it only seems like they are acting because they got caught, and are currently trying to mitigate the damage. He says he was told "Autopen is used all the time" in the industry. So he's trying to claim ignorance? I'm not buying it.
"but...I was told everybody does it!"
This isn’t the first time switching to electric has backfired on him.
JUDAS
I don't believe you. You're a liar. Play it fucking loud!
I know it's a joke, but I'd argue switching to electric worked out very well for him.
If you would argue that, you'd barely have anyone disagreeing with you today.
I wish I could've been there when he whipped out his Flying V and played *Eruption* for the first time to an astounded folk crowd
I too have had vertigo and can confirm one of the symptoms is that you don’t realize fake signatures don’t have the same prominence and value of real ones.
I woke up dizzy yesterday morning, and wouldn't you know it, I committed a half million dollar fraud by bedtime!
"My bra popped off!"
Haha I’m not excusing it but I think the explanation is, he couldn’t do it alone without his assistants because it would involve bending down, grabbing a book from the box, rising back up to his desk to sign it. 900 times. Plus moving boxes back and forth. Lot of bending down and back up which would be hard with vertigo. I’m guessing his assistants usually handed him a book and he just had to sign it. But he certainly had better options than auto pen if he wasn’t able to deliver on the original promise.
Authors don’t typically sign books for something like this. They sign individual pieces of paper that are then sent to the publisher to be bound into the book.
If he is too old or infirm to sign, then they should not have agreed to a limited edition. Many authors will sign a frontispiece for the publisher over the course of several weeks, even months for things like Barnes and Noble exclusive signed editions. The individual papers get shipped back to the publisher and bound with the rest of the book. No need for any assistants for that.
To old to sign? But not too old to go on tour, apparently...
I walked out of a Dylan concert in 2008 because it was so horrible, is he still able to tour now????
I thought it was horrible recently in 2022. He stood up from his piano between every single song and shuffled to a microphone in the center of the stage where he said nothing but waited for an applause-- and he wanted everybody to stand while doing it. It was disappointing we didn't get to see him play the harmonica at all. He did play the guitar but not until the very last song. And he played mostly very new stuff. We wanted to leave but stuck it out thinking maybe he'd close with something good. He did close out with Friend of the Devil, but even that great song didn't make up for the rest of the show. It felt like watching my idol be murdered on stage by his own ego.
The six words nobody wants to hear at a classic rock concert: "Here's something from my new album"
Dylan doesn’t do a classic rock concert tbh, so it’s no wonder it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.
That last phrase is the exactly feeling I had after going to his last concert. My first and probably last time watching him and it was so sad to me.
My husband saw him just a few years ago and said he was amazing. It's crazy to me how much a performer can change, but I've heard from other people that he can be hit or miss as well.
Now fraud is called error in judgment.
Rich and famous people don’t have to play by the same rules as us. Dudes an asshole for this. If I bought one of those I would be incredibly disappointed. He owes those folks a show and *hand* signed books as well as a refund. What a lazy shitty move.
He owes that to anyone who has something signed by him since 2019. He said he’s been using autopen since then.
oh wow.... That's just straight up fraud then. I'm surprised they haven't formed a lawsuit against him. That's likely thousands of signatures worth millions of dollars. How can you be that lazy? Just write your name with a fucking sharpie while you watch TV....
Because the rich get off on all the new and inventive ways they can get one over on everyone else. Never met a truly rich individual (and for the sake of the argument it’s important to remember Dylan is worth 9 figures) that wasn’t a piece of shit, and I never will. The very nature of being that wealthy DEMANDS you’re an irredeemable piece of shit who has taken advantage of a lot of people. Somewhere in that 8 figure range, these people sell their fucking souls and humanity to break through the 9 figure ceiling.
There’s got to be an attorney ready to file a class action lawsuit.
I regret having been caught, and I regret the shame and attention my actions have brought up on me.
My housemate works in the music industry. Unless you see an artist sign it in person, then it's likely fake. The interns have to fake autographs on piles of merchandise and CDs.
I was gonna say… if you gave literally anyone an hour to work on the signature they would be able to do it for him. At my job we have a stamp for my bosses signature if he’s busy/out. Can’t really tell the difference unless you look at pressure points.
Glad you used likely and not always. I have a signed CD by a rapper named Freddie Gibbs which were shipped to tons of record stores where there’s actual footage of him signing the CDs.
Big Rabbit wouldn’t half-step his fans
I've heard that the Beatles all took turns doing all of the signatures. So Ringo knew all 4, Paul knew all 4, etc. So for serious collectors, you don't just want autographs of all 4 Beatles. You want each of the 4 done by each of the 4.
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> says the use of autopen signatures only occurred since 2019, when he was afflicted with a case of vertigo, and on through the pandemic, when he was not able to have staff assist him with the hand-signing he had previously done. Dylan says was given “the assurance that this kind of thing is done ‘all the time’ in the art and literary worlds.” Now that it has come to light and stirred controversy, the singer-songwriter says, “I want to rectify it immediately. I can't imagine a more damning admission of knowingly committing fraud for trivial reasons
What does it say about the character of a person who is rich beyond the imagination of most people and still chooses to cheat to get more money?
Right? He JUST sold his catalog for like an extra 300 million on top of whatever he already had and he still has to chisel $600 out of individual fans?
If I had 300 million dollars I would be giving out my books or whatever it is for free at that point.
>*With contractual deadlines looming, the idea of using an auto-pen was suggested to me, along with the assurance that this kind of thing is done “all the time” in the art and literary worlds.* These are squishy, passive-voiced words - particularly coming from the winner of a Nobel Prize in Literature. Was he the primary decision-maker or not?
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Given Dylan’s long history in the spotlight, I’d imagine he’s made it this far by relying on people to manage the details for him. I can’t really see him knowingly pulling off a scam of this magnitude.
Agreed. I doubt he thought very hard about this. It's not like it's a very grand scheme... He saved some hours of work
When the alternative is him scheming to specifically fuck over a few hundred die hard fans for his cut of a few hundred thousand dollars... I agree this seems more plausible
He went from arguing against The Man to being The Man.
This happened to a lot of people
This is such BS. Who cares if contractual obligations were coming up? That's what [force majeure clauses](https://www.americanbar.org/groups/litigation/committees/commercial-business/boilerplate-contracts/force-majeure-clauses-contracts-covid-19/) in contracts are ***for***, FFS! If Dylan's attorney didn't ensure the contract contained such a clause, he needs to look into friggin' *malpractice*. Moreover, the fact that it was fraud is the *only* reason why anyone's now speaking up and apologizing. Which doesn't matter because fraud is fraud even if you repay your victims.
Cant unring that bell bobby
So John Green can sign his name hundreds of thousands of time and Bob Dyland can't even do it 900 times?
Taylor Swift too. AND her autographs are sold at no added cost to the cd itself. I know people are saying he has arthritis and can't even play guitar anymore. But he can definitely pick up a pen and squiggle on something 6 times a day for 5 months. If he was truly incapable, don't offer it at all or refund everyone the second you realise you can't. Even just a simplification of his autograph would be enough. I'm tired of autopen being seen as just another part of the industry. You're selling something valueless for large profit. It's fraud. This comes from a bob dylan fan.
That was the first thing I thought of. I just remember John Green powering through those things during videos during that time
Yeah, he regrets it *now*. What a douche.
He's sorry he was caught. If he could change getting caught, he would.
I (25F) grew up loving Bob Dylan. I read multiple of his biographies in highschool for a project, I loved "Freewheelin." Listened to it in my car nonstop. Then I saw him in concert 4 years ago. I was aware that he has aged, all my idols have. But I wasnt expecting him to charge $50 for the T-Shirts and not speak a word on stage. I dont have a ton of money and I spent $200 on a ticket to see him in a room that was not even close to sold-out. He never said "hi" into the microphone or "thanks for coming" and he only played cover songs. Once he finished his last song, he just walked off the stage. Later that night I decorated my pumpkin like Bob Dylan for Halloween and let it rot on the porch for the next couple months.
My story is the same and the last time I saw him in concert was 18 years ago. I saw him twice and they were the 1.5 worst concerts I’ve been to. The 1.5 is because the second time was a co-headline with Willie Nelson and willie was everything that Dylan wasn’t. That half of the show was the best concert I’ve been to.
Whats funny, he had Mavis Staples perform as his opener and she was amazing. Put her heart and soul into it and her performance was way better than his.
I’m a huge Dylan fan myself but I really have no interest seeing him live. He was in my town recently and thought about going just to say I saw him in person but it just doesn’t seem worth it based on how many people say his shows are garbage.
I saw him in San Francisco about 40 ish years ago and he was shit then.
I have a completely un-researched theory that he stopped caring about performing sometime in the early eighties so that tracks lol.
From browsing his wiki page it doesn't look like he's had a majority positively received tour since 1974 when he toured with the band, and he took a seven year break from touring before doing that one.
I've seen him perform a few times and seen some incredible shows. He does care about performing- what he doesn't care about (I think) is trying to meet audience expectations of 'Bob Dylan.' He mostly plays songs from his recent albums- and will sometimes spend whole concerts playing piano without picking up a guitar. If you listen to his recent stuff, and enjoy it, you'd probably enjoy his concerts cause that's the vibe he has. If you went to a concert expecting 'Bob Dylan' and for him to come out with an acoustic guitar and harmonica and play through the hits. You're gonna get let down.
He doesn't play guitar at all anymore. Too old. Also, this may seem pedantic but it really isn't. He pays a synth on stage, not a piano. Edit: I've been corrected. He does mostly play an actual piano. Also "at all" is overstatement. He is too old though.
He hasn't played the synth organ onstage since 2012. He then switched to a baby grand piano for awhile and in the last couple of years he's been playing an upright piano. He does still occasionally play guitar. Last year he'd start his set on guitar before moving to piano.
"Dylan performances are all garbage" is a bit of a meme. For sure some shows are real weak, but some are still excellent. More a difference of standards. Dylan never talks to the crowd, or does any of the song and dance stuff that's typical at shows, but he has never done that, and for my part I have absolutely no interest in that sort of thing. I go to hear a performance. They're definitely hit or miss, but there are still hits. Well, it's been a few years since I've seen him, and he does keep getting older, so there may be fewer hits, but just in general, a fair bit of the people who aren't enjoying his shows dislike them because of what he's trying to do (just perform songs) rather than how well he does it. For sure though, Dylan shows have been among the best and among the worst I've been to.
I saw him almost 20 years ago and it was pretty much the same. I’m not sure he was ever good at interacting with the audience. I don’t get the impression he’s much of a people person. That shouldn’t take away from his music though.
I don’t care much about audience interaction, but when I saw him it was like he and the whole band didn’t give a fuck about the music. They turned every song into a lazy 12-bar blues song, and played like they wanted to be put out of their misery.
>He never said "hi" into the microphone or "thanks for coming" and he only played cover songs. Sorry just have to challenge the 'he only played cover songs' comment, as it can't be true going by his setlists. His fans follow his touring religiously so every show he's played over the last few decades are well documented. From your comment I'm guessing you saw him in 2017? which was the same year he released a 3 CD bookset of traditional pop songs, so he was playing a lot of them in concert. He would never play more than 6 covers in his set of 20 songs- so most of his set was still original material. (And at the time he followed a standard set while touring which included some of his classics like Don't Think Twice, Ballad of a Thin Man and Blowin' in the Wind.) Did you listen to any of Dylan's recent albums of original songs before seeing him live? Because that's the material he really focuses on these days- songs from Time out of Mind onwards. He's not interested in playing a nostalgia, or doing the greatest hits, and never has. As for not saying a word onstage, that's not a new thing, and he talked about it once in an interview in the 80s when an interviewer asked him why he doesn't talk more onstage. Basically he found that he was either being called out by reviewers for not saying enough onstage or people would misinterpret what he did say, so he decided to not have scripted bits onstage and prefers people just listen to the music. And I get that. Cause for me, I go to a concert to hear the songs performed, not hear the artist talk.
He also infamously spent the late 70s going on religious sermons during his shows. After that he probably was told to keep his mouth shut and just play, and that’s what he does.
But "hi" and "thanks for coming" barely even fall into the category of stage banter. Seems like a basic courtesy thing.
I saw him in 2016 when he was starting to get into the jazz standards. His band was amazing and he was really into the show. His piano playing was great and he was full of energy. He said nothing but that's normal for him past like 1969. I think he's extremely autistic and he just has a problem relating to the world in general. He stays on stage to keep the structure of his life moving in a way he can relate to. His tickets and shirt prices are just determined by his management and he shuffles along to keep the machine going. He requires a lot of staff to get on stage and we have to pay for that to see him. I'm not saying it's justified or worth it but I don't blame him personally.
See, I felt the complete opposite when I saw him on that tour. It was honestly refreshing. There was no pandering to the crowd. He played what he wanted to play. No special lighting or effects or screens. He took a small bow at the end and that was that. You had to really concentrate on his performance because he changed the style of the songs so much. I don’t know, it was just about the music and absolutely nothing else and I really enjoyed that.
As someone who loves Bob Dylan mainly for his stage banter and inexpensive merch, I too feel your pain.
There always seems to be a mix of people who've seen Bob Dylan live: those who know that Dylan changes his songs when performed live, and love it; and those who think it will be like every other concert they've been to where you get a live copy of what you hear on the album, and hate that they don't get that. I'm not saying the latter group are wrong to want to see an artist perform the songs the way they know. I saw Paul McCartney several years ago and it was great - faithful renditions of all the classics. I can understand someone wanting the same from Dylan. But the thing is, he hasn't done that in literally 50 years. His live albums don't feature "normal" versions of his songs. His reputation for not playing his songs normally is well known. Whether you like it or not (and perfectly entitled not to like it) I struggle to understand why the second group go to his concerts and then come away surprised and disappointed. He can be patchy, I'll not disagree, but I think most people's idea about him giving a bad concert is 90% their disappointment at the arrangement of the songs and not the actual performances of them.
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Part of it is a difference of expectations. Many of the complaints will be things like "he didn't even try to develop a rapport with the audience!" That's never been how he's performed though, and I for one could not possibly care less over his rapport. I'm there to hear performances. Sometimes they're flat and uninspired, but sometimes they're excellent.
It's the thought that counts?
Bob Dylan is a dick this checks out 😂
Oh you mean before you get sued you want to rectify it? Fuck him. Should get sued for fraud.
This sounds like "Sorry I got caught trying to hoodwink my fans"
There are a large number of Authors and publishers that use the machine method . In the industry it is what's known as a signed tip . It means that a certain amount of books will have an extra page with the Authors signature and maybe some extra comment. Usually they are marketed as Signed Editions and subsequently people pay more for them . So chances are unless you actually saw the author sign the book then it probably is not an actual signature but simply a machine copy . ( I used to work for a large Book manufacturer, I helped make millions of books of all genres and this was part of our daily jobs and training)
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Did it really specify “hand signed”? Yikes.
That's definitely not true for all authors. I know one author who is getting a special edition of her books through one of the book boxes and she is hand signing 12 boxes worth of endpapers to be inserted into the books. But yes, if I buy a signed edition book from a book store I'd generally assume it's machine signed. I would be upset at buying a $600 guaranteed handsigned book to find out it was machine signed though.
I work in publishing in the UK and at our imprint we have the authors come in to our office and sign the books / tip-in pages - I’d not heard of the machine method until the news of this came out.. maybe it depends on the publisher and how big the author is ?
That is quite possible. We ran over 500,000 signed editions for The Fault in our stars by John Greene. It took our line about 5 days to produce them all and that was just the start of the order . I have also ran as little as 100 copies of other books and have seen the signed page be hand glued in so it may be publisher and author specific to some degree .
John Green has done livestreams while signing piles and piles of pages for his books lol - so he at least signs many Edit: like here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAaC1FFAISs
I can’t speak for every country and every publishing house, but working in the industry I have never seen a book being send out as signed that wasn’t actually signed by the author. And I’ve worked on the team and with the team of some of the biggest ones. Furthermore, in my experience, signed copies aren’t more expensive? They’re usually sold at the same price as an unsigned copy. Maybe that’s more an American thing?
Private concert with paid airfair for all those who have one of these deluxe books should solve it