Bob Dylan received the Presidential Medal of Freedom today (link). I guess I started to love Bob Dylan when I was like 14 or 15 years old. It was definitely because “Like a Rolling Stone” was in The 60s miniseries and I was dead seriously set on having been a hippie in a past life. It was not easy to appease your hippie spirit in a small Texas town in the 90s, let me tell you, so you took all the Bob Dylan you could get.

My Bob Dylan neurosis stayed strong most of the way through college. I’m talking literally 1.) my livejournal identity was mainly based on Bob Dylan 2.) every time I left my dorm room, Bob Dylan lyrics all up on my AIM away message 3.) I had decided I would break up with PJ about a month after we started dating, but then he bought me Bob Dylan tickets, so I postponed it for a month until after the concert and the rest is history.

Mr. Obama also praised Mr. Dylan’s voice for its “weight” and “unique gravelly power” that redefined “not just what music sounded like but the message it carried and how it made people feel.”

Yeah, that’s about right. If you’ve never read this, stop being an asshead and get it right now. It may not be as transcendent as I recall it being when I was a desperate 20 year old, but maybe I’ll read it again to check.