Q: What do you think of Bob Dylan? A: Dylan came along in the footsteps of Ramblin' Jack Elliott. He lived with Woody for a while, and picked him as his model. He absorbed the whole southwestern style from Woody. And the country for the first time fell for a national American vocal style. Then Dylan left the scene and went middle class after three years. He turned his back on folk music, turned his back on people. I think he did a big disservice to the country when he did that. ... The whole thing has been to make urban mobile people have a folk music of their own. It's not a bad idea. Terribly boring though. Q: Do all your projects lead to one goal? A: I make my living as a very hardworking scientist. I do that because it was important finally to take this huge world that was coming out of loudspeakers, and get down to the meat of it so that it can be used for the betterment of our future ... so that we can keep all the treasures of the past and use them. That's what I'm doing. I'm doing it in a scientific way so that I can absolutely refute the idea of those who say that Oklahoma doesn't matter, or that the Pygmies might as well be exterminated. Each of these people, we have found, has something for the human future, and for the human destiny. ******** EASTSIDER PETER MAAS Author of _Serpico_ and _Made in America_ 1-12-80 On the surface, his life could hardly be calmer. Peter Maas gets up every morning to have breakfast with his 12-year-old son, then heads for his midtown office, where he spends about five hours at the typewriter. He rarely goes out in the evening, and his idea of fun is a weekend of fishing, a set of tennis or a game of backgammon. "I don't have to live in New York," he says. "When I'm working on a book, I might as well be living in the wilds of Maine." But in his mind, Peter Maas leads the life of James Bond and Al Capone rolled into one. "I know an awful lot of people on both sides of the law," says the author of two nonfiction block-busters about crime, _The Valachi Papers_ and _Serpico_. _The Valachi Papers_, the real-life saga of three generations of a Mafia chieftain's family, was published in 1969 following two years of court battles and rejections from 26 publishers who felt that books on the Mafia had no commercial potential. It sold three million copies in 14 languages and paved the way for an entire industry of Mafia books and movies. _Serpico_ (1973) revealed the rampant corruption in the New York City Police Department through the eyes of officer Frank Serpico. Then came _King of the Gypsies_ (1975), Maas' third expose of the underbelly of American society which, like the others, was made into a successful movie.