Friday, August 14, 2009

Dylan gets busted… right or wrong?

Here’s a news story I ran across on the web. It’s pretty funny, so please take the time to read it because this is an equal opportunity, interactive blog and there is a required response. (You wouldn’t want to fail me now, would you?)

(Warning: There are a couple of ‘reading impaired” bloggers in this circle, who’s names shall go unmentioned, as afterall, there is such a thing as blogger etiquette, however, I’m sure they will make themselves quite evident as they seem to bedevil this site with inane comments on a regular basis. Sort of like blue tail flies, they don’t really harm you, they’re just the old aunt you tolerate. If you get my drift.)

Anyway, the point is: Is there any fault to be assigned in this incident? If not, why not? If so, who and why?

Here is the article:

Talk about "a complete unknown." Bob Dylan was detained by police in Long Branch, N.J. last month, when a young officer failed to recognize him, police said. The officer proceeded to go to earnest lengths to ensure the hooded, disheveled, rain-soaked music legend was, in fact, who he said he was.

Long Branch, N.J., police officer Kristie Buble, left, says she encountered Bob Dylan wandering around the streets of Long Branch.

Dylan, 68, one of the most celebrated, eccentric artists in American history, was in the area on July 23 as part of a national concert tour -- a fact lost on 24-year-old Long Branch police officer Kristie Buble.

To hear the young New Jersey police officer describe it, the scene was like something out of one of Dylan's epic song-poems: It was pouring rain, Dylan was soaked and wandering alone, far from the traveling home of his entourage of tour buses.

When Dylan wandered into the yard of a home that had a "For Sale" sign on it, the home's occupants became spooked by his appearance and called police with a report of an "eccentric-looking old man" in their yard, Long Branch Police said. One of the occupants even went so far as to follow Dylan as he continued on down the street.

Buble said the man told her he was Bob Dylan.

"We got a call for a suspicious person,'' Buble said. "It was pouring rain outside, and I was right around the corner so I responded. By that time he was walking down the street. I asked him what he was doing in the neighborhood and he said he was looking at a house for sale."

"I asked him what his name was and he said, 'Bob Dylan,' Buble said. "Now, I've seen pictures of Bob Dylan from a long time ago and he didn't look like Bob Dylan to me at all. He was wearing black sweatpants tucked into black rain boots, and two raincoats with the hood pulled down over his head.

"So I said, 'OK Bob, what are you doing in Long Branch?' He said he was touring the country with Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp. So now I'm really a little fishy about his story. I did not know what to believe or where he was coming from, or even who he was.

"We see a lot of people on our beat, and I wasn't sure if he came from one of our hospitals or something," Buble said.

She asked for identification, but Dylan said he had none. She asked where he was staying and he said his tour buses were parked at some big hotel on the ocean. Buble said she assumed that to be the nearby Ocean Place Conference Resort.

"He was acting very suspicious,'' Buble said. "Not delusional, just suspicious. You know, it was pouring rain and everything."

Following her police training, Buble said she indulged him.

"OK Bob, why don't you get in the car and we'll drive to the hotel and go verify this?' " she said she told him. "I put him in the back of the car. To be honest with you, I didn't really believe this was Bob Dylan. It never crossed my mind that this could really be him."

Buble made small talk on the ride to the hotel, asking her detainee where he was playing, she said, but never really believing a word he said.

"He was really nice, though, and he said he understood why I had to verify his identity and why I couldn't let him go," Buble said. "He asked me if I could drive him back to the neighborhood when I verified who he was, which made me even more suspicious.

"I pulled into the parking lot," she said, "and sure enough there were these enormous tour buses, and I thought, 'Whoa.'"

Her sergeant met her at the hotel parking lot.

"I got out of my car and said, "Sarg, this guy says he's Bob Dylan,'" Buble said. "He opened the car door, looked in, and said, 'That's not Bob Dylan.'"

"So we go over to the tour bus and knock on the door and some guy answers and I say, 'Are you missing someone?'"

"Who's asking?'' came the reply, according to Buble.

"I was in full uniform, so I say, 'I'm asking! I'm the police.'"

Eventually, the police were shown Dylan's passport, which Buble said she looked at, saw the legend's name, and rather sheepishly handed it back to Dylan's manager.

"OK,'' she recalled saying as she smiled. "Um, have a nice day."

A police department source said Buble had taken her share of good-natured ribbing from some of the older officers.

"To really appreciate the story from our end, you have to see Kristie," one cop said. "She looks like a 16-year-old kid, next to this living legend. It was unbelievable."

12 comments:

  1. Do not go gentle into that good night,
    Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
    Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

    Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
    Because their words had forked no lightning they
    Do not go gentle into that good night.

    Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
    Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
    Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

    Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
    And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
    Do not go gentle into that good night.

    Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
    Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
    Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

    And you, my father, there on the sad height,
    Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
    Do not go gentle into that good night.
    Rage, rage against the dying of the light.


    I know she wouldn't have recognized Dylan Thomas either.

    But It's good Bob went gently into the light that night.

    The cop probably would have tasered his ass.

    Bet she would have recognized Eminem though.

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  2. Right on all counts WM. Seems to me the cop did the right thing. If someone in a hooded overcoat was skulking around my neighborhood at night, in the rain, I might want to know what they were up to.

    A similar thing happened down here a while back. A store owner called the police about a seriously alcohol impaired woman driving, of all things, a Hummer limo. A city cop responded but by the time he pulled her over he was out of his jurisdiction, so he called a county cop. The county cop didn't feel he could arrest her because he never saw her behind the wheel. Rather than haul everyone to court on something that might be thrown out on a technicality, the cop took her home. No harm. No foul.
    I like to think of the cops' behavior as being "peace officers", a term you don't hear much anymore but we could use a lot more of.

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  3. I guess that will teach Mr. Tambourine Man not to stroll about without his papers. Sheesh.

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  4. Great story! I'll definitely tell it like I found it all on my own.

    I've really only started appreciating Dylan in my thirties. Didn't get it when I was younger. He's a lyrical God.

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  5. As much as I love Bob Dylan, you have to admit he does look scruffy on a good day. Wandering around at night wet and disheveled, I can only imagine what he might look like.

    I guess we also have to cut her a little break that she didn't recognize him since she is a young whipper snapper and at least she did take him and verify his story versus just throwing his ass in jail.

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  6. Simon... I'm not sure Dylan's papers would have helped him any. I imagine his photo looks like Jack The Ripper.

    Heidi... get into Dylan. Maybe the greatest songwriter/poet ever, although it's often difficult for newcomers to get past his voice. Someone who really does his music justice in Tim O'Brien, the bluegrass icon. His album Red on Blonde is terrific Dylan.

    Right on point Peach... she did her job as a "peace officer". Can't fault her. And Dylan has a history of wearing disguises so as to wander around unrecognized. You can't fault him either.

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  7. Punch and JJ... I'm wise to your collusion. I'm sorry, you can come back now.

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  8. Jesus H. Crist! thought you would never ask.
    Kids with badges...
    Any One, Anybody that does not recognize Bob Dylan is most likely under thirty (30). Everyone knows Bob Dylan first coined the phrase 'Don't trust anyone under Thirty." or was it the other way around, I forget, it was over 40 years ago.
    'Aw But I was so much older then
    I'm younger than that now.'

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  9. Can't fault the police officer. Not too bright on his part, methinks.

    I really, really, wish he had said when asked who he is, "the answer is blowin' in the wind, my friend." Oh well.

    Punch, I believe the phrase is/was, "don't trust old coots who have Wal-Mart happy faces on their blog." Just looked it up.

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  10. At fault is Mr. Dylan himself, for foolishly aging naturally when he should be nipping and tucking his way to eternal youth like the celebrity he is.

    (Love walking man's comment!)

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  11. Punch... you go bro. Although, I have this feeling that sometimes Bob doesn't recognize himself.

    JJ... There you go again. I've cautioned you before about taking you laptop into the john and jerking-off while texting.

    Intelliwench... Lord, when you look at what happened to Joan Rivers and MJ, one can only imagine what Dylan would look like with a face lift.

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