Bob Dylan: Like a Complete Unknown
Every day is the same thing out the door
Feel further away then ever before
Some things in life, it gets too late to learn
Well, I’m lost somewhere
I must have made a few bad turns
I see people in the park forgetting their troubles and woes
They’re drinking and dancing, wearing bright colored clothes
All the young men with their young women looking so good
Well, I’d trade places with any of them
In a minute, if I could
Bob Dylan, “Highlands”
Well, undoubtedly you’ve heard the story. Wandering around Long Branch, NJ on July 23rd, while taking a walk before his concert tour, police apprehended the nation’s most prolific and gifted singer-songwriter after homeowners called to report a strange man standing in their lawn.
The owners called Bob Dylan an “eccentric-looking old man,” and one of them followed him as he left the yard and continued to walk down the street. The phone call to 911 led a 24 year-old police officer, Kristie Buble, to respond. “We got a call for a suspicious person,” she told the press. “It was pouring rain outside, and I was right around the corner….I asked him what he was doing in the neighborhood and he said he was looking at a house for sale.” Buble asked his name, and he responded promptly, “Bob Dylan.”
First reports that she had never heard of him and didn’t know what he looked like were incorrect. Buble did know of him, but had only seen photos from decades earlier, and hence, she said, “he didn’t look like Bob Dylan to me at all.” Besides, he was “wearing black sweatpants tucked into black rain boots, and two raincoats with the hood pulled down over his head.” Anyone who knows about Dylan’s desire for privacy knows, in fact, that even on nice warm sunny days, he often wears a sweatshirt with a hood, so his distinctive give-away hair is hidden and he can go unnoticed in major cities, like “a complete unknown.”
Of course, when Dylan told the officer, and another cop who had arrived, that he was giving a concert with Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp, they didn’t believe it. “We see a lot of people on our beat,” she said, “and I wasn’t sure if he came from one of our hospitals or something. He was acting very suspicious,” and couldn’t produce an ID when asked for one. Dylan might have said, as he did in song:
Ain’t talkin’, just walkin’
Walkin’ ever since the other night
Heart burnin’, still yearnin’
Walkin’ ‘til I’m clean out of sight
As I walked out in the mystic garden
On a hot summer day, hot summer lawn
Excuse me, ma’am I beg your pardon
There’s no one here, the gardener is gone
Bob Dylan, “Ain’t Talkin’”
But, the police officer noted, Dylan was extremely nice and polite, so she drove him to the hotel parking lot where the tour buses were parked, and finally after knocking on the door of one of the buses, was handed Dylan’s passport with his photo. She sheepishly apologized, telling Dylan to “have a nice day.”
Dylan had been through this drill before . A few years ago, when he was recording one of his recent albums at a Miami Beach studio, he was staying in a 5 star South Beach resort hotel. As he came back in during a daytime outing, the doorman refused him entry, saying that only guests could stay there. When he responded that he was a guest, the doorman still wouldn’t admit him. Only when the manager was called and a staff person from the recording session was found, did they let him in. At another time in October of 2001, he was not allowed backstage to one of his own concerts in Oregon because the security people refused to believe he was Bob Dylan. Obviously, anonymity has its price.
“Wandering around Long Branch, NJ on July 23rd”
It is rumored that this might be a black neighborhood and the residents were concerned about some weird looking white guy roaming the area. That sounds like racial profiling to me. Is Bob Dylan a victim of racial stereotypes? Where is Eric Holder when we need him? When will these scandals end? I can hear Dylan singing, “Let my people go!” There should be riots before the sun sets today. No justice, no peace. Dylan and his fellow victim Skip Gates may now wish to go on a civil rights march together. The famous singer could also sue the city of Long Branch and never have to sing for his bread ever again. He should not settle for anything less than 100 million dollars.
Everyday, I love Bob Dylan more. Having heard something about his humility and his need for privacy, something tells me he is probably amused by anonymity and takes it anywhere he can get it.
“Cop cars blinking, something bad going down Buildings are crumbling in the neighborhood But there’s nothing to worry about, ’cause it’s all good It’s all good They say it’s all good.”
And Radosh quotes this out of context and without the slightest sense of irony to prove his point. Next he’ll be lauding Bush and Cheney with quotes from “Masters of War.”
Love it.
Most people of all races, religions etc. would politely dealt with the situation just that way. Howard Hughes used to get questioned by cops all the time.
Similarly, most black or white homeowners would call the cops if a weirdly dresed man was on their lawn.
Good for the homeowner: good for the cop: Its these touchy professors and racialists that drive us apart.
Bob who? No one younger than 30 cares. Get a life you old coot.
Awwww. What a touching story about Bob and an interesting contrast to the Gates incident.
Ron, he might have been hungry and looking for a string bean. Of course in that scenario he was shot at, and quickly did a retreat and lit a cigarette on a parking meter. Dylan’s humility is in sharp contrast to Skippy Gates’s angry response.
Here in lies the difference, Dylan has celebrity and accomplishments that will outlive him and some day he may be considered the Shakespeare of our age; Gates assumes that by being a member of the Harvard Faculty he has achieved a position of Elitism.
Dylan will probably chuckle about the incident and hopefully write a song about the situation. Gates hoped to create an incident and have his Black President friend create a tempest in a teapot that would launch him to the forefront like Rosa Parks, in the end he embarrassed himself, the president, and Harvard. Dylan actually made a contribution to relieving racism, while Gates has made a career out of exploiting the race issue. Dylan’s work was original and creative, Gates’ parroted other race pimps with their messages of division and thrived by fueling the fires of hatred.
If Dylan were going to engage in an argument or a battle of wits with the police, I doubt if he would have resorted to talking of sexual innuendo to someone’s mother. Of course for a dignified Professor of Harvard this may be standard procedure. We can only judge class by performance.
I have admired Dylan’s poetry for decades and now I have more respect for the man as a man. Fare thee well is not good enough Bob, I will say G-d Speed.
Pathetic. Dylan still buys into the Walt Whitman all men are brothers jive. The brothers done set his white ass straight.
As a Dylan fan from way back, this story just made my day. (Wish I could be at the concert.)
Bob was great during the 1960′s and I had all his LPs and of course being a child of the 60s I was at first into the anti Vietnam War especially when I turned 18 and had to sign up for the draft. In 1970 my number (lottery number was 168) another cousin of mine was 18 and even another was 366 (had to account for leap year). However after I turned adult I voluntarily joined the U.S. Navy and my ex wife never did figure out why I did this and perhaps neither did I but I did.
One thing about Bob Dylan that few people know is that the device that held the harmonica around his neck so he could play it while playing the guitar was his own invention, not sure if he got a patent on it or not but one of his later songs Knocking on Heavens Door is really a good one. There are some great interviews with him and he really does not take himself too seriously are really understand why he did as well as he did. He just wrote and sang what he felt at the time and that was that. Unlike the current resident of the White House Bob Dylan is quite humble and is a private person and just as well feel better to be left alone.
Of course, these days Dylan looks like Harpo Marx and sounds like Harvey Fierstein. I think he might be considered suspicious wandering around in any neighborhood.
I love Bob Dylan. His music is timeless and he is a national treasure. Evidently he is not a jerk either
At least he didn’t spend three days in jail for impersonating a composer like Beethoven did after being picked up wandering around the Vienna Woods without ID. So, he’s in good company.
I wouldn’t know Bob Dylan from the man on the moon if I saw him, but I’ve heard the name. If I were a cop, and some scruffy old coot told me that he was “Bob Dylan”, I’d be thinking psycho. That may be what the cops were thinking, but chose not to say.
It would have proven interesting if it had escalated to the point of demanding ID. Then we might have had a legal issue. Fortunately, there were no chips (or “Skips”, as it were) on any shoulders, and everything turned out fine.
“The cops did the right thing.”
Excuse me? Since when is it a crime, or even suspicious, to walk around a neighbourhood and look at a house for sale?
Who says conservatives love liberty and freedom?
That sentiment wipes out any quaint notion of the idea.
Pandering to fear is the quickest way to erode liberty. One day we’ll wake up and say “WTF? When did that happen?”. Well, it happens one little step at a time, just like this. Calling the police on someone because they’re walking around in a neighbourhood in the rain. Y’all deserve Obama’s state-run life with an attitude like that.
Your papers… NOW!!!
How many times do cops let it go… the only reason they didn’t beat his ass is because they thought he was a lost and confused off guy thus they didn’t think he can answer the questions anyway.
Hundreds of ppl are stopped every day and have their papers demanded simply because they are “in the wrong spot”. Its sad that we are becoming so much like germany in 1930s.
Not exactly. If you’re driving, they can require your license. The courts have upheld that they can ask you your name on foot. Requiring furnishing ID if you’re on foot hasn’t been adjudicated. There’s a good chance that we’ll see such a case in the next few years, and if it does go to the top, I predict that Sotomayor will cast the deciding vote in a 5-4 decision for requiring ID.
But that’s cool, because it’s a wise Latina violating your rights, right?
Sorry, but Bob Dylan is one of the most overrated ‘artists’ in history.
If you don’t have satellite radio you need to get it just to listen to the Bob Dylan Theme Time Radio Show that plays every Sunday evening on Sirius 18. Give it a chance and I promise you’ll be hooked and a fan of Bob.
19. Kay
If you a referring to his vocal talents you’ll not get much argument. But with the music library the man has written, that has been covered by decades of musicians all across the musical spectrum, it would be easy to argue he is underrated.
But hey… the eye of the beholder and all that!
Like Ron Radosh says, Dylan’s a private person. He’s used his public persona of “Bob Dylan” to keep the world away from his private and inner life. He rarely sings in his natural singing voice (supposedly his recording of Lay Lady Lay is the closest to that). He calls himself not the “voice of a generation” but rather a song and dance man.
He’s been ambivalent about his own status as a songwriter, saying that it was only after performing his songs with the Grateful Dead that he accepted his stature as a good writer. Or, that could be complete bullshit. You never know what to believe what comes out of Bob’s mouth. He’s been a prankster from the outset.
In any case, his second tier work generally surpasses most other popular music, and his first tier work, like the great early albums through Blonde On Blonde as well as later works like Blood On The Tracks or some of his more recent successes, is at the very top rank of contemporary music and holds its own place among the greats of American music.
Nobody could sing the blues like Blind Willie McTell, but nobody can sing or write “Blind Willie McTell” like Bob Dylan.
When the cops picked up Dylan in New Jersey, he may have been looking for Bruce Springsteen’s boyhood home, which is nearby. Dylan apparently has visited the homes of other songwriters, like Neil Young’s house in Canada.
Which is a bit odd for me since I’ve traveled to Hibbing, Minnesota to see Bob’s boyhood home.
I wrote my response for this a while back…just like this story, for some reason, (if it is pertinent news at all), gestated in the grist mill for over a month before finally being released. Sounds like pretty calculated schemein’…
Praise be! The Ghost of Albert Grossman lives on in the hearts and minds of those gathered here……Please join us for the inauguration of the commemorative Bob Dylan hot air balloon this year at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Please send all donations to the Sean Sarto Assistance Fund for
Emergent False Idols…
Our motto is:
More ya love ‘em, more of a killing we’ll make!
Bob Dylan: In his own words
“It’s Alright Ma, (I’m Only Bleeding)”
“…for them that don’t think death’s honesty/won’t fall upon them naturally/life must sometimes get lonely”
“…the one who gargles in the rat race choir/bent out of shape from society’s pliers/cares not to come up any higher/ but rather get you down in the hole that he’s in”.
“Visions of Johanna”
“Little boy lost, he takes himself so seriously/he brags of his misery/ he likes to live dangerously….”
“….he’s sure got a lot of gall/to be so useless and all…”
Yep sounds jest like the conscience of multi-millionaire liberal con- artist, walking around in the rain peekin’ into other people’s windows …..
Such insight!
“Wiggle, wiggle wiggle…..’
From the UK MSM paper Daily Mail:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/bigbrother/article-1206617/Like-complete-unknown-Bob-Dylan-frogmarched-collect-ID-rookie-policewoman-fails-recognise-scruffy-music-legend.html
“He found out while staying at the Ocean Place Resort in Long Branch. Before taking part in a concert with Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp, he decided to take a stroll through the town’s Latin quarter.
‘Residents called to complain there was an old scruffy man acting suspiciously,’ said officer Spencer. ‘It was an odd request because it was mid-afternoon. But it’s an ethnic Latin area and the residents felt he didn’t fit in.’”
And so we have the official proof of racial equality being finally reached: hippy icons like Dylan are getting arrested for the heinous offense of loitering with intent to cross the road whilst being white.
Oh yeah…I’m the “New Dylan”..must be why no one recognizes me…but that’s anonymity in a socialist USA..
It’s like what Arlo said, “Good mornin’ America, How are ya?/ Don’t ya know me I’m yer native son?”
Steve – Bob may have made one of his own and although he has many accomplishments, he definitely did not invent the harmonica holder.
Kay – Thanks for that nugget of wisdom. You’re incredibly wrong, of course.
I agree with those who say the police were a somewhat out of line here, by the way. I compliment Dylan for his common sense but I don’t think anyone deserves to be rousted on the street for basically nothing. “Your papers please!” is not something we require here.
Maybe she gave him shelter from the storm. Is there time enough to listen to all the beautiful music in the world?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HJdnOnWK_A
#6 Get A Life says: “Bob who? No one younger than 30 cares. Get a life you old coot.”
My 15 year old says she cares a lot and thinks Bob Dylan’s music is very relevant. My 15 year old also believes you shouldn’t disrespect your elders by talking to them they way you do.
Kay..you forgot to say….”in your opinion”…the most overrated in history.
Dylan is a huge part of music history…like him or not.
I had heard a story of Dylan once walking to one of his own shows, in the midst of a crowd in Dublin, and he made it all the way without anyone recognizing him.
Dylan is a very complex man, and it is to his credit that all throughout his career he has purposely fought off all of the many left-wing loon groups who tried to co-opt his fame by trying to sidle up their message to his. If anything, Bob does not have a message, in the way the ocean does not have a message. He is one of the greatest artists in American history and a living icon, and he still can put on a wicked show when he wants to.
Bob Dylan started doing what he wanted to do when he was still a teenager. And for the next half century after that, he never stopped, he never sold out, he never recycled, he never let the quality slip for too long and he never let the demons get him, like they got so many others. He . . . never . . . stopped. Hey, Bob. Now that you’ve built your ladder to the stars, won’t you Stay forever young.
It’s been a joy to hear and appreciate his poetry for decades!
“Striking for the gentle, striking for the kind
Striking for the guardians and protectors of the mind
An’ the poet and the painter far beyond his rightful time
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.”
In truth, immediately i didn’t understand the essence. But after re-reading all at once became clear.
Seems like Bob and the cops got along just fine, they asked he answered, not a big deal. No yelling, no spitting no losing their cool.
Life after all goes on, you go Bob
“One thing about Bob Dylan that few people know is that the device that held the harmonica around his neck so he could play it while playing the guitar was his own invention”
No. Jimmy Reed.
Dylan, what to say about Dylan? His music was an inspiration to me back in the days. His protests were not the most acerbic or subservient to the comsymps. They probably had some influence on my having filed (successfully) as a conscientious objector during the Viet Nam War, even as I deplored the North and its Russian suzerains.
When I became older, I went first through a libertarian phase and then a more (John Adams-civil republican) conservative, the position which (more or less) I hold today; I am most assuredly no pacifist. I dismissed Bob Dylan, actually paid next to no attention to him, for many a year; but I was surprised later to hear that he himself had become at least somewhat more conservative.
Truth is, he has always been his own man who has defied being pinned down upon a category. This is easy for a private man but quite difficult for a public figure, upon whom one clamoring faction or another is always freighting its expectations.
So this anonymous man wanders in the rain and is picked up by a police officer who simply cannot take him at his word. I do believe I can hear the first guitar strums of a new song, and I might someday even listen to the lyrics.
Ah, but we were so much older then/
We’re younger than that now.
Happy trails, you wandering Jew.
Valuable thoughts and advices. I read your topic with great interest.
And now we see the reason behind this story..”Bob Dylan to release Christmas Album”…Of course, Mr. Victoria’s Secrets/Caddillac(I’ve heard Pepsi too)..etc(not too much of a sell-out is he?)…is Jewish…but “Christian” only when it pays…Even if he is donating the proceeds to charity, he needs the prestige..and the “down-to- Earth” persona which is essential to his “Americana”market…plus there’s quite a few kickbacks involved…
seansarto,
I don’t know if you are a Christian or a Jew,
but I think you are treading on shifting sands if you presume to know Dylan’s heart and mind on this incident or why he’s put together a Christmas album, whose proceeds are to be donated to charity. WHO are YOU to know the motive of any man?! Only God can search the heart and HE always comes up with what’s going on there!
Very Interesting post. The elderly statesman of music has collided with forms ranging from folk to glam rock and many in between and has left them richer, altered forever. In every endeavour he opened new gates and redefined what can be treated as art. Dylan the unquestionable ‘poet laureate’ of the rock started with folk and transcended the form by owning it. He lent poetic nuances to the protest movement that was shrieking around him in early sixties. He was the reluctant hero who was seen as the voice of his times. Since then he has been conducting a ceaseless and successful campaign to break one rock archetype after another.
http://modernartists.blogspot.com/2011/10/bob-dylan-at-70-once-more-for-simple.html