How could I not comment on Bob Dylan getting questioned by police and escorted out of the area? Most of the articles get a good chuckle out of the fact that these young punk cops had no idea who Dylan was and treated him like some little old man who looked suspicious and acted strange:
Such was the quandary the 22-year-old rookie New Jersey police officer Kristie Buble faced July 23, after investigating a complaint from the owners of a home for sale in Long Branch, N.J. They'd called the police after spotting an "eccentric-looking old man" wandering around their front yard. It was pouring rain, and the man was alone, looking haggard and lost.
But one commentator noted the difference between Dylan's behavior and that of Professor Henry Lewis Gates:
When his story checked out, the officers released him and left. A city official said of Dylan, "He couldn't have been any nicer to them." Apparently there were no Dylan rants about whom the police were "messin'" with, no reference to their mothers, no mayoral or gubernatorial editorial, no presidential sermon on police acting stupidly by profiling and putting a man in a police car for simply walking the street.
And another thinks the incident shows the sad state of American freedom:
America has become a place where a harmless, 68-year-old man out on a stroll can be stopped, interrogated, detained, and forced to produce proof of identification to state authorities, despite having committed no crime.
As always, I will fall back on WWDS -- What Would Dylan Say? Sure, he was polite and seemed to shrug the whole thing off. But inside, I'd like to believe, there was still a little bit of the old rebel snarl:
And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand o'er your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead
