My latest piece is on-line at http://www.firstofthemonth.org/who-was-that-masked-man-rolling-thunder-review/

Here’s a portion:

Martin Scorsese’s “Rolling Thunder Revue” opened with a a silent movie magician vanishing a woman. (The trick should have been a clue.) Then came Rolling Thunder Dylan performing “Mr. Tambourine Man,” intercut with Present Day Dylan explaining why he’d hit the road. He referred to America’s “loss of confidence,” following the fall of Saigon and two attempts on the life of the president, while flotillas, parades, and President Nixon celebrating the Bicentennial screened.
But the Bicentennial had been the summer after Rolling Thunder, and Nixon had resigned two years before it, and Ford had been shot at, not Tricky Dick. Neither Saigon nor the assassinations had figured in any tour account Goshkin had read, and the only mention of the Bicentennial was Shepard telling Scorsese people “didn’t give a shit” about it.