Searching for Bob Dylan in Malibu Canyon leads me years later to Hollywood Bowl
Sometime around 40 years ago, my brother and I, both big Bob Dylan fans, went looking for his house in Malibu. Of course, we had no address, but I had read enough about him to predict a vague area. Very vague, it turned out.
Peter patiently drove as I directed him.
“Wait, let’s try this canyon; I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that he lives near here,” I said.
When that didn’t pan out, I moved on to, “Turn here. Doesn’t this sound like the name of a canyon he would live in?”
Eventually, we got pretty close to an estate where I was sure the man who wrote the words, “Hey lady, hey, lay across my big brass bed,” would live.
“Can you see what I mean?” I asked my brother who protested all he saw were tall fences and private property signs. I love the boy but sometimes I worry about his lack of imagination.
A few hours of curvy roads later, now tired and hungry, Peter suggested maybe finding Bob Dylan just wasn’t meant to be. “Have you forgotten who you are talking to?” I admonished him. Then I segued into a reminder of his sister, at 13, who took two buses in a strange city to get to the hotel where Elvis Presley was staying, climbed 20 flights of stairs and waited in the stairwell for hours until he came out of his suite. The girl for whom he picked up his guitar and played “Love Me Tender?”
I don’t give up easily. Keep driving.
Over the years, he has mercilessly teased me about being stubborn. But this year, this week, it is paying off.
Recently I read that Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson were performing at the Hollywood Bowl on July 31, the day after my brother’s birthday.
“Stop what you’re doing and fly to Los Angeles for your birthday,” I texted him, “The brass bed man is coming to town.”
We are still debating the timeframe of our failed search in Malibu. His memories of dates are tied to sports games; while mine lean more toward “I think that was the year my poems were published in Cosmopolitan.”
It looks like we are settling on “It happened a really long time ago.”
And to think, my brother thought his big sister would give up on finding Bob Dylan.
To paraphrase Willie Nelson, “He was always on my mind.”
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