So, I’m at a Novotel in Toronto with extremely poor internet access (which I’m paying for!) so this will be brief. I have a few posts that I want to write in the next couple of days, so I will try to find a Starbucks or someplace with more reliable internet. When in Toronto: Do not stay at the Novotel!

Anyway, Bob Dylan doesn’t stay in nice hotels either, mostly because he smokes and, apparently, he likes to keep the windows open, which mostly means a lower level of motel or his bus. In 2009, in Long Branch, NJ Bob Dylan was detained by a police officer when he was reported to be peering into the windows of a house that was for sale while it was pouring rain. The responding officer, who was 24 to Dylan’s 68, did not recognize him, and he had no ID, but she did return him to his hotel and it all worked out. This is the best report of the incident that I’ve read.

This was one of those stories that got a lot of play five years, almost all of them with the same headline: “Like a Complete Unknown”. Dylan has made the job of headline writers really easy. It’s a real man bites dog kind of story, so it’s not surprising that it got picked up. It is also one of the rare glimpses that we get into Dylan’s private life – him in track pants roaming the streets of New Jersey (lots of speculation that he was looking for Springsteen’s home, or the house where Bruce wrote “Born to Run”, which is reportedly two blocks away from where he was picked up). Basically, it seems that Dylan spends his time on the road wandering around anonymously looking at things. Since that’s pretty much what I do too, I feel like we have a kinship on that front.

Ok, let’s see if this posts.