• David Talbot said, "...his investigator has a clear political agenda, as we've documented in Salon numerous times. He's funded by someone who is the chief Clinton hater in the United States. The same man has paid off his key witness, David Hale. It's an unseemly web."

• I said, "You know, Bob Dylan once sang, The pump won't work 'cause the vandals took the handles.' We'd better get Ken Starr far away from this investigation and get some neutrality here. Otherwise, we're gonna have the vandalization of the criminal justice system."

Two days later, I got a package in the mail. It came from Indiana, no return address. I opened it up and inside, there was a short, unsigned handwritten letter, that said, almost verbatim, "I saw you on Rivera Live the other night and thought you would enjoy these. If not, please give them to someone who would."

Inside the package were a lot of non-commerical but professional quality audio and video tapes, wrapped in colored paper with replicas of album liner notes on one side (I still have them and am looking at them as I write this.) Here's what I got:

Videos:

• Dylan Press Conference, San Francisco, December, 1965
• Dylan--Hard Rain (Indoor), Clarwater, 1976
• Folk Music at Newport (1963 - 1966)
• Getting to Dylan --Omnibus--BBC--1986
• Bob Dylan Compile

Audio Cassettes:

• The Circus is in Town(HBC TV, June 26, 1965)
• Folksinger's Choice (Radio Show, March 11, 1962)
• Dylan, Acoustic Troubadour (November 4, 1961)
• Guitars Kissing & the Contemporary Fix (Double cassette, Royal Albert Hall, 1966.) It came with this typed note:

This is Bob Dylan's famous concert performed at the Royal Albert Hall in 1966. The first half of the performance went without incident. But towards the end of the second half of the show (Dylan was performing electric) a fan stood up and yelled "You're a Judas." Dylan responded saying "You're a liar." You can also hear considerable booing during this show as well as others of that time period. It was a very curious time."

To this day, I have no idea who sent me these tapes. But, in case he or she is reading TalkLeft, consider this a belated thank you. Also, in case you are in touch with Bob Dylan, please let him know I'd like to interview him for TalkLeft when he's in Denver next week. Not about his politics, just about his vision, his music and how he perceives its impact (if he cares,) what's important to him now, and the like. You can e-mail me here .

So that's my pitch. Admittedly it's a stretch, but stranger things have happened. I'll let you all know if I get a bite.

Post-script: Since its inception in June, 2002, the tag line of TalkLeft (see the bottom of the left-hand column) has been, "The pump don't work 'cause the vandals took the handles" -- a line from Subterranean Homesick Blues. It's not a reference to these tapes or to Rivera Live, there's another story behind it-- one pertaining to criminal defense lawyers in our activist mode--and probably I'll recount it another day.