Charles P. Pierce — who "back[s] up to nobody in my respect and love for The Master" — is irked that somebody else is writing about Bob Dylan.

"Songs of his I could not understand in my youth mean more to me now than a lot of Scripture does," but when he reads Elizabeth Wurtzel expressing all manner of reverence for Dylan, Pierce shifts to being one of the many here among us who feel that Dylan is but a joke. "Desolation Row" —  for just this one moment — becomes "one of the great stand-up comedy routines." Because nothing's funnier than a heart-attack machine.