Blogger inspired by Dylan's Dinocomment 'bout the Elvis and our Dino

Hey pallies, likes the Dinocoolness just keeps comin'..... Here's a great Dinotale from the Nashua NH Telegraph Newspaper 'bout a guy tagged Fred Bals who began his Dreamtime blog from a passin' mention by Bob Dylan on his radio programme 'bout how much the Elvis loved our Dino. Now that is truly Dinoinspired!!!! To access Mr. Bals blogg...which contains some very cool Dinorefs...goes to....... http://www.dreamtimepodcast.com/ I'm sure I'll be goin' more Dinopostin' 'bout this blog in the Dinofuture. To checks out the original article by Correspondent Rick Dumont, just clicks on the tagg of this Dinopost. Loves hearin' how others are Dinoinspired as Dinowell.... Dinosharin', DMP


Encore Arts
Published: Thursday, January 22, 2009
Live, from Merrimack, it's Dreamtime blog and podcast
By RICK DUMONT Correspondent
On the net:

Dreamtime blog and podcast:



MERRIMACK – The vast and seemingly limitless expanse of the Internet is growing increasingly flush with writers of all levels of talent – the bloggers.

Many of those write daily missives for friends and others who might stumble across the site. Others act as news organizations attempting to break stories before the traditional media. Still others offer their opinions on anything important to the writer.

Fred Bals is one of those bloggers. The 56-year-old Merrimack resident, though, has taken a different approach than many with his Dreamtime blog and podcast programs. He is a dutiful follower of Bob Dylan's satellite radio show "Theme Time Radio Hour," and, for the past two years, Bals has extrapolated upon various points raised by Dylan during his shows and carved out his own niche in cyberspace that has been growing in popularity and achieving attention from the more traditional national media outlets.

Inspired by a comment he heard Dylan mention offhand (or seemingly so) that Elvis wanted to be Dean Martin before being "discovered," Bals went about researching and looking for the truth in that comment.

"I didn't know that," Bals said. But after doing some "digging around" Bals found out that in fact Presley had wanted to be Dean Martin and had originally molded himself in the Rat Packer's image. But feeling that image wouldn't be marketable, Elvis' handlers molded him into what he became, Bals said.

"I thought it was a fascinating story," that was most likely unknown by most people, Bals said.

But what to do with this information? Bals, being a tech-business writer working freelance for a number of companies, decided to try his hand at creative writing and post his findings on a blog site. And thus, another blogger was birthed.

Over the years, Bals has taken a variety of tidbits of information Dylan has let out, researched the items and posted them on his site and formed a monthly podcast as well.

"I'm a very big Dylan fan," Bals said. "But we are also into the same music," which ranges from 1920s-'50s.

"He likes to give basic trivia about various pieces of music," which became the format for Bals' own esoteric historical blogsite.

While Dylan appears to be modeling his radio show after his hero, Woody Guthrie, who once had his own show, Bals is expanding upon his hero's incredible wealth of obscure musical knowledge.

Each of Dylan's shows are themed around a certain subject or style of music, and between songs, none of which are his own, Dylan talks to his audience.

"Buried beneath those comments are usually great stories nobody's ever heard," Bals said.

Other items of note that Bals has culled from the show to write about have been such things like comedian Phil Silvers having been responsible for writing the Frank Sinatra classic "Nancy," which was written about Sinatra's daughter. Or that vaudevillian comedian Morey Amsterdam, most famous for his role of Buddy Sorell on the "Dick Van Dyke Show," wrote the Andrew Sisters hit "Rum and Coca-Cola."

One of Bals' most responded to blogs was about the keyboard master Jerry Lee Lewis' involvement in a rock opera version of Shakespeare's "Othello."

"A lot of Jerry Lee Lewis fans (wrote him) saying why the hell did he do that?" Bals said.

What started out as simply an enjoyable hobby has now become a viable money-making venture for Bals. Though he said he doesn't make enough to "quit my day job." But it is self-sustaining and has gained the notice of some pretty heavy organizations in media. Blas said several of his blogs have been linked to by National Public Radio, the New York radio station WFNU and the Norwegian based Web site on everything Bob Dylan. This past September, writers from the venerable rock music magazine Rolling Stone got in touch with Bals and did a write up on his programs.

Popularity is "always appreciated," Bals said. His site receives about 5,000 hits a week, but really he does it for himself. It's an escape from the tedium of technical business writing, he said.

"I can do anything I want to, it's very relaxing," Bals said. "I'd probably be doing it if nobody went to the site."

Even with all this notoriety bubbling around his site, Bals said he has yet to hear from Dylan or his people.

"I have no idea whether he listens or reads (anything on the site)," Bals said. "I just hope if he stumbles across my blog, I hope he enjoys it."

Bals airs his podcast once a month and updates his blog as interesting items come to light.

The writer said he will keep doing his work as long as Dylan continues to do the radio show.

"It appears as though he's still enjoying himself," Bals said. But when the end comes, Bals said he has "a couple of ideas" as follow-ups.