The Night I Never Hugged Bob Dylan

The night I never hugged Bob Dylan began with a foul note from Benny's mom in the late afternoon.

It was April, 1997.

Benny's Mom's fiftieth birthday fell on Shakespeare's 433rd and I'd bought Oregon Shakespeare Festival King Lear tickets to celebrate, along with a night in a bed and breakfast.

Her note jammed in my back door called the outing off and, for me, called off the thing we'd had going for over a year. We never went out again.

Dave and Dave came by later and we drove to Portland to the Aladdin Theater and so began the night I never hugged Bob Dylan.

I'd seen Peter Himmelman live once before at the Back Door in Seattle in 1996 the night my Twisp friend Bill Davie opened for him and Sherman Alexie laughed at Bill's quips and doubled over in joy at Himmelman's jokes.

Peter Himmelman creates a living room on stage with couch and coffee table and candles and at some point in the show he invites audience members to make themselves at home on stage.

I didn't know he did this when I saw Peter Himmelman at the Back Door in Seattle.

When Dave and Dave picked me up after I read Benny's Mom's note I was feeling the free, loose way I feel after a thing with a girl ends and I told Dave and Dave that if Peter Himmelman put out a call for couch sitters at the Aladdin tonight I was going. I would spring to my feet the second I heard him start to mention it.

I followed through.

On the night I never hugged Bob Dylan, Peter Himmelman was part way through his first set when he started to say how nice the couch and candles and coffee table were on stage and did anyone and before he could say want to join him I jumped to my feet and started down the aisle and jumped on the stage at the Aladdin Theater to be with Peter Himmelman.

Later Dave and Dave came up and we all had beards and Peter called us Dave and the Beards.

I was happy to be a member of Dave and the Beards on stage with Peter Himmelman. I had bought his tape Strength to Strength in a shop in Newport the summer before, a few months after Sherman Alexie was in the house at the Back Door and I loved to pop the tape in my player and open the front door wide and plant irises and dig plots in the front yard while dancing with my shovel to "Woman with the Strength of 10,000 Men".

I'd made Benny's Mom a Peter Himmelman tape and a Bill Davie tape, too, and she called them my boys when she told me she loved those tapes and so with Benny's Mom now gone from my love life it seemed right to be on stage with Peter Himmelman.

I didn't know when I was on stage with Peter Himmelman that he would ask me to dance.

At one point he turned to me, out of mike reach, and said, "Bill, do you do interpretive dance?"

I was feeling loose and free and the stakes were low and I was taking Improv. Acting at Lane Community College and I said yes, I do interpretive dance.

Peter motioned me forward and told the packed house at the Aladdin Theater that I was an interpretive dancer and that I would perform to his song "Wrapped Up in Cellophane" (hear it here).

I didn't know the song. I listened keenly as Peter Himmleman sang and I was feeling loose and free and kept the stakes low and I floated, tried to keep my 235 pound third string rugby halfback body light, and convinced the packed house at the Aladdin Theater that I felt this song and my body swayed to my feelings and the audience believed I had cellophane in my hands while at key moments in the song I mummified myself in cellophane.

It was the night I never hugged Bob Dylan.

After the show, audience members mobbed me. I felt loose and free and grinned broadly and shook people's hands as they slapped my back and laughed and thanked me for my dance.

Still, I never hugged Bob Dylan.

After I was done with my dance, in front of the packed house at Aladdin Theater, Peter Himmelman hugged me so close I could smell the garlic from the green room pizza on his breath.

Peter Himmelman is Bob Dylan's son-in-law.

He could tell I felt loose and free.

He thanked me for my dance.

We hugged.

It was the night I never hugged Bob Dylan.

But, I was close.