More on That Odd Bob Dylan Incident

There are some new details in the Bob Dylan incident in New Jersey reported over the weekend.

Actually, this first link isn't new, it just includes information that wasn't included in the original story I linked to:

According to Long Branch Police Department Sgt. Michael Ahart, Dylan had been peering into a window of a house that was for sale, which prompted a neighbor to call the police on July 23.

This ABC News report also doesn't mention Dylan peering in a window, but does say he wandered onto the property of a house for sale.

Either case would make the police apprehension of him less troubling, and he was technically trespassing, though once it was clear he didn't pose a threat to anyone, I'm still not sure he should have to produce identification.

More interesting is this bit from the ABC report about why Dylan may have been wandering around New Jersey in the rain:

Was Bob Dylan looking for the home where Bruce Springsteen wrote "Born to Run" in 1974 when he was detained by police near the Jersey shore last month?

The 68-year-old music legend was picked up one Thursday last month by a 24-year-old cop who failed to recognize him as he walked the streets of Long Branch, N.J. in the pouring rain.

It may have been as simple as it appears: Dylan told police he was talking a walk and looking at a home for sale.

But the area where Dylan was picked up was just a couple blocks from the beachside bungalow where Bruce Springsteen wrote the material for his landmark 1975 album "Born to Run."

In the past nine months, Dylan has visited the childhood homes of Neil Young and John Lennon, in both cases appearing without fanfare and barely identifying himself after he was recognized.

Last November, Winnipeg homeowner John Kiernan told Sun Media's Simon Fuller that Dylan and a friend arrived unannounced in a taxi to his Grosvenor Ave. home, where songwriter Neil Young grew up.

Dylan, Kiernan said, was unshaved and had the brim of his hat pulled down over his head. He asked for a look inside and inquired about Young's bedroom and where he would have played his guitar.

(Edit: Contrary to initial reports, the police now say it was the occupants of the home Dylan wandered up to who contacted them.)

Comments

[B]

He should be an asshole like Skip Gates. Maybe he will end up having beer with the "president".

[Solanum]

So Bob was being a peeping tom? Onto the sex offenders registry he goes!

[Noel]

Dylan is a peeping tom. Check out this youtube video describing Dylan peeping during a rain storm while working in Switzerland. She describes Dylan peeping in her window. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCdrI_ALijc

[Chris Newman]

Obviously, Dylan is looking for appropriate places to hide his horcruxes.

[Tulpa]

I suppose he was technically trespassing, though it was a neighbor, not the owner of the home for sale, who reported Dylan to the police.

"Technically trespassing"? Reason's anti-cop reflex is alive and well. I suppose Mr. Balko would oppose police asking for ID from someone who was camping out in his front yard while he was on vacation, since the only people who could report it would be his neighbors. And even then, the person would only be guilty of the obscure, technical violation of trespassing.

[Cal Lipigian]

Dylan looking for Springsteen's childhood home makes no sense. Do you think the Ramones cared where Green Day grew up?

[Lester Hunt]

I find it hard to imagine Dylan admires an overrated mediocrity like Springsteen, but stranger things have happened.

[Hugh Akston]

Radley, I'm curious about your choice of words in the headline.

Is it odd because a police officer was called about some weird old dude lurking around someone's home, or because the officer asked to see his ID even though he was obviously a threat to no one, or because this rookie cop failed to recognize one of the most overrated musicians of the 20th century?

[pjd]

Dylan doesn't care about Springsteen ? ? ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQUOcqMjTEo

As for The Ramones/Green day comment, that has nothing to do with anything.

Do you guys actually own any records ? ? ?

[IceTrey]

Aren't the Ramones dead?

[Paul]

Either case would make the police apprehension of him less troubling, though once it was clear he didn't pose a threat to anyone, I'm still not sure he should have to produce identification. I suppose he was technically trespassing, though it was a neighbor, not the owner of the home for sale, who reported Dylan to the police.

Strangers seen looking over house for sale, police apprehend suspects.

Were Mr. Dylan's papers in order?

[Paul]

from the beachside bungalow where Bruce Springsteen wrote the material for his landmark 1975 album "Born to Run."

Thousands of working class kids from New Jersey are committing suicide as we speak.

[bob]

How ridiculous. Put up a sign to attract attention and once someone takes notice, hassle them for looking.

I'm a landlord who encourages folks to stop by my vacant properties and look in the windows to verify their interest before I take an hour out of my day to meet with them. Here's to hoping the cops don't taser my prospective tenants.

[Jim Treacher]

He should be an asshole like Skip Gates. Maybe he will end up having beer with the "president".

Bobby's on the sidewalk
Talkin' nice with the cops
Skip's in his rented house
Actin' like a total louse...

Were Mr. Dylan's papers in order?

OMG FASCIST POLICE STATE

I'm a landlord who encourages folks to stop by my vacant properties and look in the windows to verify their interest before I take an hour out of my day to meet with them. Here's to hoping the cops don't taser my prospective tenants.

Like they tasered Bob Dylan, you mean?

[Tim Cavanaugh]

Update: It turns out he was looking for the spot where John Cafferty and Beaver Brown composed "On the Dark Side." Bob's catholic in his tastes.

I'm a landlord who encourages folks to stop by my vacant properties and look in the windows to verify their interest before I take an hour out of my day to meet with them.

Then let it be on your head when one of your lookyloos sets off a DIRTY BOMB on the property.

[Tom Walls]

We played "Lookey Dookey" when we opened for the Dirtbombs.

> Then let it be on your head when one of your lookyloos sets off a DIRTY BOMB on the property.

[BakedPenguin]

Aren't the Ramones dead?

Three out of four. Their original drummer Tommy is still alive.

[Jason Woods]

Sorry but that guy is starting to sound like a MAJOR tool to me!

RET
http://www.online-anonymity.net.tc

[Douglas Fletcher]

Christ I've been tired for 35 years about people wondering what the hell Bob Dylan was thinking.

Maybe he was just thinking whether he should eat before or after the show.

[Ratdog]

I heard the cops were in the area investigating a report called in by Bruce Springbeans complaining that "the pump won't work 'cause the vandals stole the handles" upon seeing the wandering Dylan they immediately recognized him and only arrested him after several of Springbeans 60s retread neighbors showed on the scene stating they had witnessed Dylan on numerous occasions "slurring and rambling incoherently" about what sounded like threats to "dump work to cruise town vandalizing handles."

Guess we'll never know, unable to find an interpreter, or anyone even able to identify what language it is Mr. Dylan speaks, it was agreed on a mistrial would serve no purpose, so he was released with the hopes the little rough break would give him a reason to return to familiar ground among his own people, or at least to wander out of the area into some other precinct.

[Ratdog]

The conservative Republican Johnny Ramone is dead?

Hmm..must have been playing hooky that day.

[Art-P.O.G.]

"Technically trespassing"? Reason's anti-cop reflex is alive and well.

Anti-cop reflex? Calm down, Sparky.

[*]

Heh heh. So we've gone from gestapo-tactics outrage to mystery novel. Is this "technically" a retraction from Radley, or a clarification?

[Nick]

What's a record?

😉

[Xeones]

Reason's anti-cop reflex is alive and well.

Good. However, this seems like pretty much of a nonissue to me.

[Abdul]

I'm just surprised that Dylan was picked up by the police and didn't have any contraband on him. This is a bigger sell-out then when he went electric guitar at the Newport Folk festival.

[Michael]

This is what happens to a complete unknown with no direction home in America!

[Anomalous]

He should have just told the female cop, it ain't me you're lookin' for, babe.

[PC]

With all due respect, the cops thought he was Dylan and asked him to sing a few lines, but was taken to the station after they realized the guy claiming to be Dylan couldn't sing at all.

[PJD]

A record is a small disk six inches across with some kind of art work pasted on the front and the back looks like a pink floyd light show when moved at a rapid speed.

Or maybe it's that thing you get from I tunes.

I might just be thinking of something else.

[Annonymous]

I've got it all worked out. Those familiar with Harry Potter will follow.

Bob Dylan is seeking out the Dark Lord Bono's horcruxes which have been placed at various places important to those artists Bono thinks he holds a candle to in his head. Childhood houses of Young and Lennon, and now Springsteen's house in the 70's. Bono's hold on the public's attention and their opinion of "creative force" is linked to these horcruxes.

Dylan's courageous efforts will do a great deal to stop the onslaught of generic, mediocre, highly commercialized music championed by Bono but taken to its logical conclusion by, for example, the Jonas Brothers.

Thank you, Bob.

[Jay Edgar]

The city of Long Branch in Monmouth County, at the NJ Libertarian Party's Preempted Ordinance Repeal Project's request, repealed its loitering ordinance on January 26th.

The NJLP has has over 20 such ordinances repealed.

[You are a Doofus]

Thank's Anonymous from 2 posts up. Thank you for taking 10 sentences to describe what Chris Newman already described in one. Not only are you a dork for making a Harry Potter reference, you are also a verbose dork.