The Ballad Of Oliver Ralfe
© Oliver Ralfe
Oliver Ralfe will be known to most of our readers for the wondrous Ralfe Band, appearances on the Mighty Boosh and as the director of Boosh documentary Journey of the Childmen. What you may not know is that Oly also produced a documentary about an obsessive Bob Dylan fan, AJ Weberman. And what’s more, it’s going to be on TV next week!
The Ballad of AJ Weberman was winner of the Raindance Award at the British Independent Film Awards 2006. On the film’s website it’s described as: “an irreverent and witty exploration into one man’s obsessions, his life lived on the New York fringes and a uniquely twisted take on the American dream.”
Weberman does not see himself as a stalker and insists that Dylan should be grateful that he is around: ‘How was I to know I would have been to Dylan what Verlaine was to Rimbaud’. It’s hard to see this as a tale of poet and critic, but rather a look at the bizarre relationship between the obsessed and the object of his obsession and how it can take over a man’s life.
The documentary airs at the following times on BBC4: Friday 20th May at 22:55, and Sunday 22nd May at 23:05. You’ll also be able to catch it on iPlayer for 1 week after those transmission dates.
The Velvet Onion 
This sounds interesting. Adulation is an interesting topic in this celebrity obsessed culture. When an individual becomes obsessed with another without knowing the reality of their object of affection it can (in some cases) lead to bizarre and uncharacteristic behaviour. It’s an interesting paradox because a celebrity does not become such without a public persona of some kind. It can be pretty powerful when one person’s work seems to reflect another’s reality or speak to them directly. Boundaries can become blurred or distorted and the imagination goes into overdrive because a lack of personal information has to be compensated for in some way.
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This guy knows more about Bob Dylan than Bob Dylan who has a distorted picture of his own worth.
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Hi Alan, may I ask if you’re the Weberman of the documentary? (I’m guessing it would be too much of a coincidence for you not to be)
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