McDonough, 42, has taken the trip upriver for every journalist who ever had a notion to interview Neil, and after reading the exhaustive results, I can only say better him than me. Even then it was like meeting Brando's Kurtz in a cave at the end of Apocalypse Now.

McDonough spent a decade writing his semi-authorized tome, the first three years just trying to get Young to talk. Now that I've read Shakey, Jim McDonough's 785-page biography of YOUNG (Random House), I've come to realize that dropping interviews - or tours or bands or women - is just part of the Neil mystique. 'Why does he even bother to set up interviews if he doesn't want to do them?' I asked the record company flack, who replied, 'Why does he even bother to make the record?' It sounded reasonable, until a journalist friend told me he'd had the same thing happen to him six years ago. Something about him seeing a doctor and how he'd try to do the interview another time. But just minutes before the taxi arrived to take me to the airport, the record company phoned to say the interview was cancelled. I had a non-refundable plane ticket and a hotel booked in Seattle. He was in the thick of yet another tour with Crosby, Stills and Nash, and had set aside an afternoon in March to promote his own new album, Are You Passionate? It had been ages since he'd talked to the media, and ours would be the only Canadian interview. It was all lined up, a rare interview with old crazy horse himself. This was supposed to come from the horse's mouth. Book Review: Shakey (Neil Young Biography)

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