On 8/17/09, Jim Devine <[email protected]> wrote:
> New York Times / August 17, 2009
>
> Arts, Briefly
>
> The Freewheelin’, Unrecognizable Bob Dylan
> Compiled by RACHEL LEE HARRIS
>
> “How does it feel?” Bob Dylan wondered back in 1965, to be on your
> own, “like a complete unknown.” Now he knows. Two police officers in
> their 20s asked Mr. Dylan, 68, to provide identification as he took a
> stroll through Long Branch, N.J., last month, The Associated Press
> reported.
>
> The officers were responding to a report from residents that an
> “eccentric-looking old man” had wandered into their yard, according to
> ABC News. Mr. Dylan, right, who said he was looking at houses to pass
> some time before that night’s show with Willie Nelson and John
> Mellencamp, was not carrying identification, so the officers
> accompanied him back to his hotel, where concert workers vouched for
> him.
And if he had not turned out to be Bob Dylan? This inspires a folk song:
Guilty of Not Being Bob Dylan
Raggedy Man wanders where rich folk thrive,
Busted for dressing down too far from slums and dives
Cop says “you don't look like no celebrity to me”
“It ain't legal being poor in the land of the free.”
Stopped on the street for breathing while black.
Charge: resisting arrest. He talked back.
Judge says: “No cop would every say a thing he did not see”.
“This a good clean bust here in the land of the free.”
White thug bashes Indians on the Rez.
Jurisdiction tangles keep him free and fresh.
Cops say “the vics don't look like celebrities to me”.
“Got more important crimes to solve in the land of the free”.
Cart by her side, she sleeps in the street.
All she owns is trashed by the cop on the beat.
Cop says “you don't look like no celebrity to me”.
“It ain't legal being poor in the land of the free.”
No actual Bob Dylans were harmed in the writing of this folk song. The
real Bob Dylan would have written it better.
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