By Kevin Giordano

I was standing on the red carpet for the premiere of Martin Scorsese's new Bob Dylan documentary "No Direction Home" when I spotted Bob Saget in a gray suit and tie.

Any celebrity can come to a preimiere, I suppose, but Saget? I hoped that, as Saget made his way down the carpet toward me, that Marty himself, who wasn't far behind Saget, would rush forward and slit Saget's throat, à la Casino.

I stood there waiting to speak with Scorsese, but mostly fretting about whether or not Matt Damon would arrive. Damon, after all, was the assignment from Celebrity X magazine. I was at the Scorcese-Dylan film premiere not to talk about Dylan or the movie or anything like that—I was there to ask Damon if he'd learned any Italian from his fiancée and to get some details about their forthcoming wedding.

I also intended on asking Matt about his buddy Ben. Oh, Matt and I were going to really yuck it up. I even thought we'd talk baseball for a bit. All this was running through my brain when I noticed a fifty-ish guy with gray hair cropping out of his ears and the biggest eyebrows I'd ever seen shaving with an electric razor: George Whipple, the entertainment reporter for New York 1. Do they just let anyone into this place?

This place was the outside of the Ziegfeld Theater. Behind me was a small crowd, standing around like they were waiting for the bus. I popped my gum at them. I overheard one of the camera guys talking about one of the reporter's tits. He was saying, rather loudly, how he was hoping she'd just come back to the van with him and blow him. The reporter, who did have large breasts, came sashaying back. "Who are you with," she asked me.

I told her and she asked me if Leonardo DiCaprio had shown up yet. "I don't know," I said. "I need Damon." Just then I turned. "Shit, that's Patti Smith," I said.

"Who?"

Back on the main red-carpet line, Saget leaned into a microphone and said, "My favorite Dylan song? I think it's 'Just Like a Woman.' It always makes me cry."

"I'm not even going to record this," I said to a fellow reporter, a guy even more incredulous than me. I tried to get friendly with a girl from a competing magazine. She had nice legs, and anyway, I thought maybe we could team up against Matt Damon. She looked like a deer caught in headlights, though, and was on her cell the entire time, not talking, just holding it to her ear.

Jim Jarmusch made his way down the carpet wearing cheesy 1970s mirror sunglasses. I spent 10 minutes wondering if it was worth asking him anything. But I was glad he was there. Next to Patti Smith, he seemed like an oasis. Leonardo DiCaprio suddenly appeared, and a flash of lights illuminated the far end of the carpet. But Leo, smiling and sporting a newly shorn crew cut, ambled quickly up the runway.

"Leo, what's with Scorsese and music," I bellowed. He turned and put up his hands. So far only Saget had anything to say about Dylan.

"I'm also a school teacher," a nubile young reporter said to me. She wore the obligatory wife-beater with her belly showing and jeans. She smiled and cooed a lot. I wondered if I should get her number.

"What are you doing?" a publicist asked me. She and I had worked on a good many red carpets together and had a long running joke about nothing. "I'm waiting for Damon," I said.

Scorese bullied past us. I think he was turned off by the New York 1 guy, who, done shaving, had started powdering his cheeks—literally in front of Marty.

Enter Steve van Zandt. A ray of hope.

"Steve, Steve," I called out: "Desire or Blood on the Tracks." Just as the words came out, some TV reporter asked him about CBGB, or was it Hurricane Katrina or was it "The Sopranos." All I knew was the next thing I heard from Van Zandt was, "They eat a lot of spaghetti."

He broke my heart.

But what about Elvis Costello? He'd have something to say about Dylan. Elvis was much shorter than I imagined, but still his frumpy self, the original nerd. "What are you doing here?" one of the ditzy reporters asked.

"I believe they're showing a movie here. I think it's Deuce Bigelow," he replied. I busted through, keen on Costello's sarcasm.

"Elvis, what'd you think of Chronicles? You read it?"

"I really liked it. It was beautiful."

"Do you remember the first song you heard by Dylan?"

"No," he said, and walked away.

Then a voice from behind me said, "Who was that?"

"Who?"

"The guy you were talking to."

There was still no sign of Damon. In fact, there wasn't much of anybody left to speak with. Then appeared Rick Ocasek with his wife, the lovely Paulina Porizkova.

"There'll be a Cars reunion that's not going to be called the Cars," he announced.

"Rick, Rick," I yelped, "What about Dylan's Desire?"

No word. Nothing. After Ocasek plodded up into the theater, a malaise fell over the red carpet. The crowd behind us disbanded. The cameramen started taking down their lights. It was 6:30 and the movie just was starting. Still I held out hope that Damon would show up; I kept thinking I saw him turn the corner, smiling, ready to grant me an interview so that I could feel like I'd done some work tonight.

But he never showed.

I listened to the playback of music from the small speakers behind me. "Desolation Row" came through faintly. I could feel the guitar strings beneath my fingers, the way I played it in my basement as a teenager. I sang along with every lyric, quietly, to myself.