Dylan picked up for street walking (Aug 2009)

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Peace
Date: 15 Aug 09 - 10:58 PM

LOL

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 15 Aug 09 - 11:31 PM

twice in the last 10 years the local bobbies
have turned up mob handed in vans in full battle dress defence gear
and banged on my front door demanding entrance and house search..

once i was asleep on the sofa in only my underpants;
another time i was stuck with my finger in a radiator valve
that had suddenly exploded spraying hot rusty water all over
my computer room..

each time, i was at very least too shocked and in no position to argue
as i agreed to let them search in every room
under beds , and in wardrobes..
and answer all questions to establish my identity
and rightful occupation of the house I own..

so,... after they found no hidden bodies or any kind of crime scene
and refused to admit they got the wrong address..
they just effed off with no explanation or apology
leaving me surprised, confused, embarrassed,
and very impotently angry..

no end of phone calls to the local station
provided any kind of satisfaction or 'closure'
or eff all compensation
for any personal distress suffered or imagined..


however.. last xmas after the pubs had closed
and i was staggering home mind bended cider drunk
along a short cut
from my favourite pub
and by pure chance i fell flat on my face
at the feet of 2 young local coppers..

I fully expected to be arrested for drunk inability
to control my legs, balance & ability to communicate in any human language,


..next morning i woke up sprawled on my own bed
with the usual scrapes and bruises
and only the vaguest memory
of having been helped back up on my feet
asked if i was hurt and ok,
then being sent off in the right direction home
by a couple of very nice friendly new police fellas..

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: mg
Date: 15 Aug 09 - 11:32 PM

I would not consider it necessary to carry ID for police reasons, but for accident reasons it would be a good idea. Probably good idea if you are not in your home town.

And very sadly often, people come to low-income, and I think this was mentioned as a high crime neighborhood, for the specific purpose of buying drugs. If you live in that neighborhood you have a right to report suspicious behavior, which depending on your paranoia could be almost anyone, or depending on your actual experience with neighborhoods deteriorating overnight, could still be a whole lot of people you don't recognize. mg

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Tyke
Date: 16 Aug 09 - 12:11 AM

About two years ago I was looking at an up to date photo of Bob Dylan and I was shocked to see how much he had aged. It was more than the usual surprise that we get when we see an old Film Star in their newest film. Bob Dylan did not look anything like the images of him.

Still it's seems a bit of a no win situation go out looking like Bob Dylan and risk being kidnapped or shot or you can go out in disguise and just risk being shot.

As for ID why didn't he just show the police his OAP bus pass like we do over here!

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Uncle Phil
Date: 16 Aug 09 - 01:36 AM

Just for the record the police responding to calls in poor neighborhoods and checking ID doesn't make New Jersey a police state. To qualify as a police state they'd have to do stuff like dismissing elected officials, suspending the government assembly or suspending trial by jury.
- Phil
Britain imposes direct rule of Turks and Caicos isles

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Jeri
Date: 16 Aug 09 - 08:43 AM

The flip side of this is that if you called the cops because some scruffy (I know this sounds like neighbors most of us have) stranger eye-balling houses, this is exactly what you'd want them to do.

And I'm sorry, but at some point it all gets real and I have no problem handing over my ID. Cops look, say 'Have a nice day' and walk on. You can go to the station house with them so they can find out the same information they would have if you'd just handed them the ID, but it just seems like a waste to me.

In the Air Force, I once tried to enter a high security area with somebody else's ID. (long story, amounts to 'Oops.') The cops had me up against the chain link wall, and I soon had police cars driving up an unloading. Cops with guns pointed at me, cops with dogs pointed at me. I was polite and did everything they asked until my boss sorted things out. When I was leaving, I told one of the cops how stupid I felt. He told me that not to long before, they'd had a full-bird colonel flat on the blacktop for a lot longer than I was in the fence-holding position because he mouthed off. These guys are doing a job. If you make it easy for them, it goes better for you. Make it harder, and things go pear-shaped real fast.

If the police have done something wrong, get out of the situation first and THEN take care of it. Don't escalate unless you want them to meet your attitude and raise you a pair of handcuffs or worse, If they're looking for an excuse to beat the crap out of you, don't give it to them. If they're just doing their crime-fighting thing, let that be all it's about.

On a lighter note,
Obama Invites Dylan, Cop to Bong Summit

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: GUEST,Giovanni
Date: 16 Aug 09 - 09:13 AM

Azizi - every post you ever write on any thread about any topic seems to introduce the topic of skin colour. I think you are obsessed by skin colour - and I truly believe that people obsessed by skin colour are more responsible than most for perpetuating racism.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Greg F.
Date: 16 Aug 09 - 09:55 AM

Giovanni:

Azizi - every post you ever write on any thread about any topic seems to introduce the topic of skin colour.

1. In the first place, that's patently untrue, which would be obvious to anyone who had actually READ her postings.

I think you are obsessed by skin colour...

2.Think what you like, but some supporting evidence would be appropriate before you make assinine statements of this sort.

3. By your spelling of the word "colour" I take it you weren't brought up in the U.S.- so precisely what do you know about the history and present situation of racism in the United States?

Or are you just trying to be a pain in the ass?
-



and I truly believe that people obsessed by skin colour are more responsible than most for perpetuating racism.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Ron Davies
Date: 16 Aug 09 - 10:55 AM

Why do some people around here always have their dial set on "outrage"?   And why does everything have to be always black and white--(no pun intended--perish the thought? ) Prof. Gates should not have been arrested,--there is absolutely no excuse for his arrest-- but his own conduct was not perfect.   And the police were responding to a neighborhood complaint.   Same thing here, in many ways.

Again the police were responding to a neighborhood complaint, it appears.   Perhaps Mudcatters would prefer to have the police ignore calls from neighbors about suspicious conduct.   In that case, the question arises as to what these Mudcatters think the police role in society should be.   Or maybe they think society has achieved such perfection that the police are no longer needed.

No, ID is not required all over the US to go walking--but if somebody calls in a complaint about your behavior, you'd best have it on you.   And if Dylan had embarked on an anti-police rant, he might have been arrested.   And the police would have again have been wrong, as they were in the Gates case.   Unless he advocated burning down the the police station or something similar and people gathered around to hear his wisdom. In which case he should be arrested. But he didn't.   So the police didn't. Maybe we can all learn something from this--which we should know already.

And it's not that blacks are treated differently from whites.   It's that sensible conduct is better than stupid conduct.

Surprise, surprise.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Ron Davies
Date: 16 Aug 09 - 11:12 AM

In fact, if the neighborhood Dylan was walking in was a poor black neighborhood and a poor black person called in the complaint against Dylan, what this incident proves, among other things, is that the police may, in this case at least, take seriously the complaints of poor blacks against whites accused of behaving suspiciously in their neighborhood.

A lesson which seems to be not exactly the knee-jerk reaction of some brilliant posters on Mudcat.

Who really should simmer down a bit and start reading and thinking.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 16 Aug 09 - 11:24 AM

I've always enjoyed a spiffing relationship with the boys in blue even in my more wayward phases. We all wear uniforms and it pays to look beyond them. I might venture that the most worryingly conservative people I've ever met have been those occupying the New Age / hippy fringes of society where the notions of peace, love & freedom serve to masks a far darker conformity than any I've encountered in so-called straight society. On this, as in most things, I keep an open mind, though the amount of New Age Hippy Pagan's I've met who regard The Wicker Man as a pamphlet for their faith is something I find rather disturbing.

CS mentioned ID cards a while back. I'm quite in favour of these actually as I have neither a driving license nor passport and would welcome some form of personal ID given the amounts of hoops I have to jump through to prove I am who I say I am. Seems my membership card for Blackpool Zoo just ain't enough!

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Greg F.
Date: 16 Aug 09 - 12:38 PM

And if, in fact, wishes were horses, beggars would ride, Ron.

Wishful thinking won't get us much farther along.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 16 Aug 09 - 12:41 PM

Which Ron are you directing that at Greg?

If we never wished, we would never have reason to move forward.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Stringsinger
Date: 16 Aug 09 - 12:55 PM

"How does it feel......?"

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: GUEST,astro
Date: 16 Aug 09 - 01:20 PM

People don't walk in the US? Of course, people walk all over and all of the time here...I walk a lot in Los Angeles, I call them urban hikes and I never have problem other then the occasional crazies that inhabit high density population centers. I certainly don't like some of the things that came out of the 9/11 events, but the ability to move unmolested by police is easy here. If many people walk here in LA, with its reputation of always driving, then people are out and about everywhere.

I don't know what happened here with Bob, it could be a problem with events out of 9/11, or simply the police concerned for his safety since he is a famous performer. Seldom do these stories provide a full description of what took place, other then titillating details to provide a "good" story.

To get too overblown about it helps no one, certainly if this is somehow linked to racial relations when no facts are there to support that. I think it is time to pull together as peoples of all stripes and colors...what a beautiful tapestry it is!

For those of you overseas, life here in the US is large and complicated. If you chose to color things according to your own prejudices then you miss out on the wonderful and, yes, sometimes terrible things that are found in all societies including ours.

Astro here in Los Angeles

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Don Firth
Date: 16 Aug 09 - 03:41 PM

Where the idea came from that people in the United States never walk anywhere, I sure don't know. It's patently absurd.

I live in a residential area, and there are people walking past my front windows all the time. Walking the dog, jogging, walking to a nearby bus stop or to one of two business districts (grocery stores, pharmacies, five book stores, restaurants, etc.) within about four or five blocks (not worth cranking up the car—if they even have one—to go buy a quart of milk or a loaf of bread), or just out for a stroll. And in either of the business districts, there are people walking everywhere. There are half a dozen churches within a ten block radius of where I live and lots of people walk to church on Sunday mornings. About twelve blocks away, Seattle Central Community College, and not far from there, Seattle University. Students walking everywhere

Lots of foot traffic.

The oft repeated statement that people in the U. S. always jump into their cars to go to a store three blocks away is a crock. It bears damned little relationship to the reality that I can see out of my front window.

Now, if someone is standing out in front of my apartment building and looking, I don't pay much attention to that. It's a 100 year old building, well maintained, and it has a brass plaque in front designating it as a historical building. Architecturally quite interesting. Not all that unusual for people walking by to stop and look. But—if they're lurking about and trying to peer through windows, I might well be tempted to pick up the phone. The East Precinct of the Seattle Police Department is nine blocks from here. They could have a squad car here in a couple of minutes.

So, what's the big deal about Dylan? And this hysteria about Dylan being stopped and asked a few questions? After all, he was behaving in a manner that many people would regard as suspicious. And the whole exchange between Dylan and the police was polite. This makes this country—or New Jersey—a "police state?"

What if the exact same thing happened in London? Or Belfast? Or Truro? Or Toronto? Or Vancouver? Or Winnepeg? Or Skandia, Kansas?

Do people just enjoy having themselves a tizzy?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Ron Davies
Date: 16 Aug 09 - 05:15 PM

Bingo, Don. As I said earlier, some people have their dials stuck on "outrage".   And that's the way they like it.

Outrage is a lot more fun for some people than sense and logic.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Aug 09 - 07:25 PM

"Do people just enjoy having themselves a tizzy?"

Yes, a great many people do! You betcha! It strengthens their fragile sense of identity. Why do you think people go to wrestling matches? To have a tizzy over something that doesn't matter at all, that's why. Okay, they are probably on a somewhet lower level of intellectuality than the average person who comes here to enjoy having a tizzy, but that doesn't mean they are any less caught up in their own particular form of searching out emotional negativity for its own satisfaction.

As to the commonness of people walking in the USA these days...I never said that nobody walks anymore for pleasure in the USA...what I meant was simply that a lot fewer people (per capita) do it now than when my parents were young and that people walk less now than when my parents were young or when I was young, and that's a fact. It is a fact that I have observed as I have watched the North American population get fatter, lazier, and far more sedentary (on average) than they once were.

Dispute it vigorously if you wish to have a tizzy over what I've just said. ;-) Express your outrage. Go crazy. Get upset with me. Make sarcastic remarks at my expense and ask me wild rhetorical questions that are based on a complete misapprehension of my original point.

Say "I make it a point never to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent." (That's a Mudcat cliche that will instantly establish your intellectual superiority and leave me weeping and bleeding in the corner...)

Stretch my original point to some ridiculous extreme so as to imply that I am a drooling moron. Draw attention to my many vile character flaws you have noticed and tell me that you pity me (that always strikes a telling blow!).

Tell me I've got rocks in my head. Make obscene gestures in my general direction (if you know what it is) and grind your teeth at me. Get REALLY incensed! Kick your chair over and roll around foaming at the mouth, and bite the carpet! It's such a catharsis, after all...and I can take it with equanimity...so just knock yourself out on my account, okay?

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 16 Aug 09 - 08:07 PM

So the answer to Don's question is yes.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Aug 09 - 08:25 PM

Make that a big AFFIRMATIVE, good buddy. Ten-Four! ;-)

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Jeri
Date: 16 Aug 09 - 08:54 PM

It's funny.

Except for one person, it seems that the most severe reactions anyone is having are about the reactions other people are having, which they aren't, except for one person, and the one person has an issue with cultural differences. You guys are trying too hard to escalate this.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: frogprince
Date: 16 Aug 09 - 09:08 PM

So now we find out that Don Firth lives in"a 100 year old building, well maintained, and it has a brass plaque in front designating it as a historical building. Architecturally quite interesting."

Damn liberal elitist...

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: GUEST,Peace
Date: 16 Aug 09 - 09:29 PM

I think Mr Dylan has spoken for himself.

Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again
Words and music Bob Dylan
Released on Blonde on Blonde (1966) and Greatest Hits II (1971), in a different studio version on No direction home (2005), and in a live version on Hard Rain (1976)
Tabbed by Eyolf Østrem


|: C   Csus4 C Csus4 :|

       C            Am
Oh, the ragman draws circles
C                   Am
Up and down the block.
    C                Am
I'd ask him what the matter was
      F                  G
But I know that he don't talk.
       F               C
And the ladies treat me kindly
    Am             C
And furnish me with tape,
    Am             C
But deep inside my heart
F             C
I know I can't escape.
Em
Oh, Mama, can this really be the end,
      C       G       F
To be stuck inside of Mobile
C       G11            C
With the Memphis blues again.

:   .   .   .   ;   .   .   .
|---------------------------------
|-1-------------------------------
|-------3-----0-----3-----1-------
|-----------------------------3---
|---------------------------------
|---------------------------------

Well, Shakespeare, he's in the alley
With his pointed shoes and his bells,
Speaking to some French girl,
Who says she knows me well.
And I would send a message
To find out if she's talked,
But the post office has been stolen
And the mailbox is locked.
Oh, Mama, can this really be the end,
To be stuck inside of Mobile
With the Memphis blues again.

Mona tried to tell me
To stay away from the train line.
She said that all the railroad men
Just drink up your blood like wine.
An' I said, "Oh, I didn't know that,
But then again, there's only one I've met
An' he just smoked my eyelids
An' punched my cigarette."
Oh, Mama, can this really be the end,
To be stuck inside of Mobile
With the Memphis blues again.

Grandpa died last week
And now he's buried in the rocks,
But everybody still talks about
How badly they were shocked.
But me, I expected it to happen,
I knew he'd lost control
When he built a fire on Main Street
And shot it full of holes.
Oh, Mama, can this really be the end,
To be stuck inside of Mobile
With the Memphis blues again.

Now the senator came down here
Showing ev'ryone his gun,
Handing out free tickets
To the wedding of his son.
An' me, I nearly got busted
An' wouldn't it be my luck
To get caught without a ticket
And be discovered beneath a truck.
Oh, Mama, can this really be the end,
To be stuck inside of Mobile
With the Memphis blues again.

Now the preacher looked so baffled
When I asked him why he dressed
With twenty pounds of headlines
Stapled to his chest.
But he cursed me when I proved it to him,
Then I whispered, "Not even you can hide.
You see, you're just like me,
I hope you're satisfied."
Oh, Mama, can this really be the end,
To be stuck inside of Mobile
With the Memphis blues again.

Now the rainman gave me two cures,
Then he said, "Jump right in."
The one was Texas medicine,
The other was just railroad gin.
An' like a fool I mixed them
An' it strangled up my mind,
An' now people just get uglier
An' I have no sense of time.
Oh, Mama, can this really be the end,
To be stuck inside of Mobile
With the Memphis blues again.

When Ruthie says come see her
In her honky-tonk lagoon,
Where I can watch her waltz for free
'Neath her Panamanian moon.
An' I say, "Aw come on now,
You must know about my debutante."
An' she says, "Your debutante just knows what you need
But I know what you want."
Oh, Mama, can this really be the end,
To be stuck inside of Mobile
With the Memphis blues again.

Now the bricks lay on Grand Street
Where the neon madmen climb.
They all fall there so perfectly,
It all seems so well timed.
An' here I sit so patiently
Waiting to find out what price
You have to pay to get out of
Going through all these things twice.
Oh, Mama, can this really be the end,
To be stuck inside of Mobile
With the Memphis blues again.



I figure by the time I get it all figured out I'll be in my dotage big time and the issue will have ceased being what it is now.

Ain't my business but I think y'all should stop arguing with each other. Yer the good guys fer krissake.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Ron Davies
Date: 16 Aug 09 - 10:03 PM

"eye-opener as to what a police state" the US is.

And, contrary to recent comments, it's not just one person favoring us with such remarks.   We also have:   "Do you need a license to breathe in the States?", etc.

That's the crux of many of our comments--the absurd degree to which that sort of attitude is off target.

The fact is:   if neighbors find an outsider's behavior suspicious, they have the right to call the police.   At that point, if said outsider has no ID, it is reasonable to get some.

As I noted, Mudcatters should actually be glad this happened: it seems to show that, at least in NJ, poor blacks can possibly get some response from the police against what they believe might be a suspicious character--a shabbily dressed, disheveled older white man behaving strangely in their neighborhood.   And just his claiming to be an internationally known rock star is not enough--he has to back this up with some evidence.

Sounds like the NJ police have a lot more on the ball than the MA police.

Of course, it also helped there was no anti-police rant involved this time.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Azizi
Date: 16 Aug 09 - 10:52 PM

Here's another article about this incident:
Bob Dylan Picked Up by Police
P
osted by Miss Cellania in Odd News on August 15, 2009 at 7:11 am

"Legendary musician Bob Dylan had a brush with the police last month in New Jersey. Long Branch police officer Kristie Buble responded to a call about an "eccentric-looking old man" in a residential neighborhood. Buble approached the man and questioned him. He had no ID, and said he was Bob Dylan and was checking out a house that had a "for sale" sign. Buble later 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.

Buble decided to humor the old man who didn't know the address of where he was staying, and gave him a ride to the hotel he described. There were tour buses parked there, and entourage members vouched for Dylan's identity. They went so far as to produce his passport for the officer.

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." "


http://www.neatorama.com/2009/08/15/bob-dylan-picked-up-by-police/

-snip-

For what it's worth, the articles about this that I have read that identify the community indicate it was a predominately Latino neighborhood. It also appears from the articles I've read that the neighborhood may have been low income, but it wasn't a public housing development.

Also, for what it's worth, in the article that is quoted above,   the description of Dylan's clothing differs from the description in the article which GUEST,Gerry provided a link for (15 Aug 09 - 02:22 AM). In that article, Dylan is said to have been wearing a blue jacket. If he was indeed wearing black sweatpants tucked into black rain boots, and two raincoats with the hood pulled down over his head" that may have added weight to the residents and the police concerns about the "eccentric-looking old man". My reading of this article is that the police may have been concern

ed that Dylan was a man who had wondereed away from a hospital or he was a man who may have needed to go to a homeless shelter.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Don Firth
Date: 16 Aug 09 - 10:54 PM

"So now we find out that Don Firth lives in 'a 100 year old building, well maintained, and it has a brass plaque in front designating it as a historical building. Architecturally quite interesting.'

"Damn liberal elitist..."

Frogprince, the building I live in is the oldest co-op apartment building in the city of Seattle. It became a co-op in 1946. Barbara and I bought into the building thirty-two years ago, getting a one-twentieth share (which includes the apartment) for far less than we would had have to pay for a house or a condo half the size. Good timing and a lot of luck!

It got historical status from the city because it is quite a nice building and it is the first co-op apartment building in the city.

By the way, it's well-maintained because we (the owners) do the maintenance ourselves. Like I said, it's a cooperative apartment building.

I trust you were merely twitting me, but just to keep the record straight. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Peace
Date: 16 Aug 09 - 10:56 PM

I saw Dylan a few times waaaay back in the Village days and he looked like that then.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Azizi
Date: 16 Aug 09 - 11:03 PM

That Neatorama blog http://www.neatorama.com/2009/08/15/bob-dylan-picked-up-by-police/ has 41 comments to date about Bob Dylan's experience with the New Jersey police officers.

It's interesting to read the comments posted by that blog community and see how similar and how different those comments are from the ones on this Mudcat thread.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Peace
Date: 16 Aug 09 - 11:06 PM

Interesting read, Azizi.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Peace
Date: 16 Aug 09 - 11:07 PM

Does anyone know whether he bought the house?

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Peace
Date: 16 Aug 09 - 11:17 PM

From the site Azizi linked to:

"> [Poster quoting an article he'd read] 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.["]

Looks like Bob Dylan to me.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Aug 09 - 11:23 PM

Now there's the question everyone should be asking. ;-) You are a brilliant man, Peace, and you know I've always said that.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Aug 09 - 11:24 PM

About whether he bought the house, I mean...

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Dita
Date: 17 Aug 09 - 04:28 AM

The out walking is just the latest version of Dylan's pre gig ritual.

About 15 years ago it used to be solo jogging.

At that time, while playing the SECC in Glasgow, he decided to jog from his hotel to the gig. Hoodie, tracksuit bottems, no ID. Security at the gig wouldn't let him in. He had to go back to the hotel and get some.

Gig security can be like that in Scotland. Eddi Reader, trying to get into the green room at Celtic Connections, was told "Nae pass, nae entry". "Don't you know who I am, I'm Eddi Reader" says the bold Eddi. "Naw, Hen", says wee Annie on the door, "A don't dae famous".

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: frogprince
Date: 17 Aug 09 - 10:04 AM

Yes, of course I was just messing around with Don Firth; but what I was primarily after was the hair-brained/cynical criteria being used to brand people as "elitist".
                         Dean

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Aug 09 - 10:07 AM

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/opinion/09ehrenreich.html This about says it all...

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: GUEST,InOBU Lorcan Otway
Date: 17 Aug 09 - 10:08 AM

New York Times on the cirminalisation of poverty in a rush, but this says it all, sorry about the above, big hurry,

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: fretless
Date: 17 Aug 09 - 10:41 AM

None of the posts seem to have cited Ray Bradbury's 1951 short story, The Pedestrian, about someone in the future who gets busted for waking. Based on a stop-and-question with the cops that Bradbury himself suffered.

Back in the early 60's one of my buddies, teenage, white, reasonably stocky, somewhat threatening looking, was routinely stopped and questioned by police when he walked in our neighborhood. And after my hair grew longer, so was I. Just part of growing up in America, we figured.

And even though it has been written above by others, I can't resist adding that it was lucky for Bobby that he wasn't walking with Skip when the cops came by.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: GUEST,Mr Red
Date: 17 Aug 09 - 10:58 AM

Most "famous" people crave a little anonimity, sometimes.

I think we can say Bob got a bit that day.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Amos
Date: 17 Aug 09 - 12:14 PM

Damn, Peace. We must be linked through Dylan's ether or something--that song has been percolating in my brain since I read this story!!


A

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: GUEST,MtheGM
Date: 17 Aug 09 - 12:19 PM

Fretless's post above citing Bradbury's The Pedestrian [1951] + some of his own & his friend's experiences from the 60s, makes a point that has been ticking in my mind as I have read thru this thread:— in contradiction of several posts above which claim it 'wasn't like that in the old days, my parents used to walk everywhere', it has always been known over here in the UK that walking in LA was a no-no. In the early 1930s, P G Wodehouse, working then as a studio scriptwriter, placed on record how eccentric he appeared to his colleagues, & how suspicious to the police till they got used to him, for his insistence on walking the several miles each morning from his Beverley Hills {I think} home to his Hollywood workplace thru the streets of Downtown Los Angeles, & back again in the evening. It would appear that not much has changed. My own experience of LA has been that, tho one can walk freely within the quarter one happens to be in, it is impossible to cross the freeway-network into another part of the city on foot.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 Aug 09 - 01:02 PM

Yes, I've heard that about L.A. too. Fortunately, I've never had to live there. ;-)

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: fretless
Date: 17 Aug 09 - 01:09 PM

MtheGM rightly understood that when I wrote that The Pedestrian was about "waking" in America I really meant "walking."

I guess it was back in early spring 1965 that I ended up in Scottsboro, Alabama with some friends in a car with New York State license plates. We parked in the center of town and in less than five minutes the local cops had bundled us down to the police station for an extensive background check (mostly focused on determining if any of the women with us were underage, or if we were there as part of the Civil Rights movement). We were really polite about it and everything worked out OK, which is not what I suspect would have happended if we'd given the cops any lip...or if any of our crew had been black.

There have always been extensive limits placed on so-called Constitutionally-guaranteed rights in America. That doesn't mean the limits are correct, or that enforcement of the limits isn't determined in great part by race or apparent social class affiliation.

By the way, what was Bobby wearing when he got stopped? I'm guesing it wasn't a three-piece suit!

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 Aug 09 - 01:22 PM

That's an excellent article on the criminalization of poverty, INOBU. It isn't just a recent phenomenon. It's been happening for thousands of years. The poor have virtually always been treated in a prejudicial manner by law enforcement and the court systems. Why? Because they're poor, and they get no respect, that's why. They have apparently failed the competitive game of life in society's eyes...therefore they are penalized for that apparent failure in a thousand little demeaning and nasty ways. I think it's a reflection of how much most people fear poverty. They express that fear instinctively when they bring down the law on poor people. They are attacking what frightens them at a very deep psychological level.

Some other common things most people are afraid of:

- getting old
- getting ill
- dying
- being physically unattractive
- being unpopular
- being alone

If you are any of the above, then you are already in a position where you're going to get a much less positive reaction from most of society around you than if you were, say....young, attractive, rich, healthy, popular, and surrounded by your "friends".

It's just like the wounded bird in the flock of chickens. The others will commonly peck it to death. Why? Well, perhaps they are afraid at some level of being wounded themselves.

"nobody loves you when you're down and out"

Dylan probably looked (superficially) like someone who was down and out. That aroused suspicion in someone's mind, so they called the cops. If he actually had been down and out...powerless in the face of society, in other words...it would have been just one more unpleasant incident in a life that already could promise little but a succession of unpleasant incidents. And that's scary. No wonder most of us are so afraid of poverty. I know it scares me.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 Aug 09 - 01:56 PM

Oh, here are some other things people are really scared of:

being seen as "stupid" or "wrong" or feeble-minded or weak or incapable

And see what happens in general to those who are seen that way.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Don Firth
Date: 17 Aug 09 - 05:30 PM

Yeah, froggy, I got it.

But I just wanted to explain things in some detail for those earnest folks on this thread who don't seem to be able to see the funny side of things.

Irony seems to slip by a lot of people. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 17 Aug 09 - 06:18 PM

"If he actually had been down and out...powerless in the face of society, in other words...it would have been just one more unpleasant incident in a life that already could promise little but a succession of unpleasant incidents."

That is making an assumption. If you have a bias that all authority figures are out to make life miserable then the outcome will never be acceptable. IF you choose to ignore all the times police and othes help the homeless and poor, then life will be full of unpleasant incidents.

You can choose between whether the glass is half empty or half full, or you can decide the water is also tepid and the glass is dirty before being served.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: Don Firth
Date: 17 Aug 09 - 06:53 PM

You know, thinking back, I can't recall an unpleasant or unhelpful experience I, personally, have had with the police.

And I've known a couple of cops personally. Randy Remmon, who, when he wasn't on duty, used to hang out in Pamir House, a coffeehouse in the University District that featured folk music and where I sang a lot. Randy also played a bit of 5-string banjo. Randy's younger brother, whose name I forget, who was also in the police department. Ben Johansson, the beat cop in the University District. Cool guy.

The only time I ever saw Ben give someone a large ration of grief was when the guy pulled over on the wrong side of a busy street (right into oncoming traffic) because he spotted a parking place. Right by where Ben was standing. He got out of his car and found himself staring at a broad, blue-clad chest with a badge on it. Ben started to write him a ticket and the guy started lipping off at him. Ben gave him a long look, said nothing, but the more the guy mouthed off, the more Ben wrote. He stood there with his ticket book and wrote for hours. But the guy had really asked for it.

I think it depends a lot on a person's attitude. Dylan was cool, the cops (simply doing their job—investigating what a neighbor had reported as looking like suspicious behavior) were cool, and everything came out okay.

So what's all the fuss?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: bobad
Date: 17 Aug 09 - 07:07 PM

"I saw Dylan a few times waaaay back in the Village days and he looked like that then."

In Suze Rotolo's, Dylan's girlfriend from that period, recent autobiography, "A Freewheelin' Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties", she mentions that he spent a lot of time in front of the mirror to get a look that said he didn't care about how he looked.

Subject: RE: Dylan picked up for street walking
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 17 Aug 09 - 07:55 PM

isn't it hare-brained? Maybe not. mg