Last week, I reposted a story I shared on Threads that detailed why I hate raccoons. I put it here because it’s a story I’ve retold often enough that I thought I might want a permanent copy I could share when the occasion required.

This is another story, shared to Threads, that I’ve told and retold enough times that it makes sense to have a version I can just send to people when the subject arises.

Jakob Dylan and the Wallflowers don’t come up in conversation nearly as often as raccoons do, but hey, Bringing Down the Horse turns 30 this week so there’s a good chance I’ll need to pull this one out soon.

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Spring, 2008. I’m co-editing a Philly-area “cityblog” in my spare time. I also have a full-time job doing PR, which means I’ve gotten even pickier about the kind of pitches I’ll accept. I have all kinds of email filters set up, and sometimes things get erroneously marked as spam. 🧵

So when my co-editor pings me to ask if I’ve seen the invite we got for a blogger weekend in Atlantic City, no, I have not.

Turns out some guy named @petershankman is doing PR for the Harrah’s (now Caesar’s) locations in AC and has organized an all-expenses paid blogger weekend that very weekend, and wants to invite someone from our site to join. My co-editor is busy but my boyfriend (now husband, and at the time also a writer for the blog) can make ourselves available. 

We are in our early/mid-20s so obviously this is a very tempting opportunity.

What seals the deal, at least for me, is that our weekend agenda includes tickets to see The Wallflowers play at the Atlantic City House of Blues (RIP), inside the Showboat casino (also RIP, kinda).

Thriends, I LOVED The Wallflowers. Bringing Down the Horse came out when I was in middle school. I bought that album with my own money (received as a bat mitzvah gift, probably) and listened to it on repeat for months.

We ask the front desk to let us know when the car arrives. The concierge, a lovely man whose name I have sadly forgotten but who used to let us break all kinds of building rules, calls my boyfriend. He sounds amused. “Your limo is here.”

Limo?

We were expecting a town car. It’s just the two of us.

We get downstairs and there is a stretch limo in the circular driveway. And it is clearly longer than the circle is wide. 

The driver takes our bags and ushers us into the car. He gets back behind the wheel. The concierge comes out and asks the driver something through his open window. The driver shakes his head and dismisses the concierge, who backs away but doesn’t go back inside. He just takes a few steps back and stands there with his arms crossed. He wants to see this.

The limo driver first tries to back out of the circle but it isn’t working. Okay, he’ll try to complete the loop instead. He winds up navigating the thing like he’s Austin Powers in a tunnel, but we eventually make it around and out.

Eventually.

We hit some traffic on the AC Expressway so we’re the last bloggers to arrive at the Showbat, where we’ll also be staying. We are escorted not to our rooms, but to a luxury suite, where a welcome reception is in progress.

I believe, looking back, that the suites were new and being shown off in the hopes the bloggers would write about them, but none of us was special enough to have been put up on one of said suites.

Anyway, this is where I finally meet @petershankman.

In what I would later discover is true Peter fashion, he eagerly introduces us to the other bloggers:

* Two people from a then-big-deal NYC-based blog who may or may not have been a couple but were definitely at least coupling on the regular. Both went on to do big things, and then years later he got #metoo’d. We’ll call him “A” and her “B.” 

* “C,” another guy from another prominent NYC-blog who seemed kind of confused as to why he, of all of the staff at his blog, was the one in attendance. He, A, and B all seem to know each other well.

* An “older,” married couple (likely actually younger than I am now) who kept a travel blog that was moderately successful. He’s “D” (heh). She’s “E.”

* Probably some other people but I don’t actually remember. Just pretend, for the purposes of this story, they don’t exist. 

I don’t remember much about the reception other than A proudly telling me he knew my blog’s publishers, who were also in the NYC blogging world. He referred to one of them by the kind of nickname you only hear from prep school guys, and clearly wanted gossip. My relationship with our publishers was mostly limited to emails about our performance metrics, so I had nothing to say.

(I swear, The Wallflowers and Jakob Dylan are coming back into this story…) 

We have a few hours free, and then our evening itinerary is:

* A tour of the Foundation Room (also-also RIP—at least the AC location), followed by dinner in one of its private dining rooms

* The Wallflowers show at House of Blues

* An afterparty at the new indoor pool at the Harrah’s Casino, “hosted” by Tila Tequila (RIP, but only her reputation—if you missed it, she’s a n@zi now) 

The Foundation Room tour and dinner are lovely but the trio from NYC were running late getting there and now we’re going to be late for the concert.

They don’t care, though. They were going to skip the show anyway. They’re in Atlantic City! They want to gamble! Party!

C asks me if I know where he might “score some blow,” as I had previously mentioned my boyfriend and I went up to AC pretty frequently to play poker. 

Clearly, C and I have had very different Atlantic City experiences. I do not, in fact, know where he can buy drugs. (I have never, before or since that day, in any city I’ve ever lived in or visited, been the person who knows where to buy drugs.)

A seems to have a lead, though. He, B, and C leave before dessert. So now it’s just me and my boyfriend, plus Peter and D and E, the married travel bloggers. 

I don’t think we all go to the Wallflowers concert, but my boyfriend and I definitely do.

The concert is everything I had hoped it would be. We have great seats—first row, center on the balcony. The band plays the songs I wanted to hear. Jakob Dylan’s eyes, as he looks up toward the balcony, still make me melt. I do not tell my boyfriend that last part, but he knows. 

After the concert, we are whisked over to the other side of Atlantic City for the afterparty. It is a bacchanal. People are jumping into the pool fully dressed. There’s a lot of making out and probably more than making out in and around the pool.

The NYC trio, who have rejoined our group, are into it. The older couple look like they wish they were anywhere else. Peter’s jaw is clenched but he’s still trying to be a good host. Boyfriend would rather be playing poker. I’m exhausted. 

A, B, and C eventually wander from our VIP booth into the bacchanal. D and E make their excuses and leave. I last maybe an hour longer, and then I’m ready to head back to Showboat.

The boyfriend and I get a jitney back because the transportation Peter had arranged wasn’t due for another hour. It’s a Saturday night and the casino, when we get back, is hopping. I want no part of it. My phone is dead and both it, and I, need to recharge. 

After assuring the boyfriend that I can make it back to our room safely, he splits off and heads to the poker room. I make for the elevators.

One of the elevators is being held open. There’s a guy standing outside of it, his arms spread to reach both doors. He’s leaning so that his head is in the elevator, and there’s laughter coming from within. 

As I approach, I hear him say something that indicates he’ll meet up with the rest of the people on the elevator soon. I’m walking fast when I call out “hold the elevator, please!” His head snaps up. 

In the split second between when his head becomes visible and what happens next, I remember thinking to myself: “Huh. That guy is wearing a hat just like the one Jakob Dylan was wearing onstage.” And rather than assuming that I was seeing Jakob Dylan there, my next thought is: “I wonder if House of Blues was selling those in the merch store.”

I had startled the guy when I called out. He spins around quickly, kind of wobbly. He’d clearly been drinking. His hands fly out to catch his balance… 

And they land, heavily, on my boobs.

I look down at his hands and then my gaze tracks along his arms, up his chest, his neck and then snaps up to his eyes.

I know those eyes.

Those eyes belong to Jakob Dylan.

That means Jakob Dylan’s hands are on my boobs.

Say what you will about rockstars feeling free to touch women where and how they want with impunity—and plenty of them do—but this was not a case of “rock star gropes fan.” He is clearly mortified.

And also clearly frozen. Because his hands do not move as he says: “Oh my god I am so sorry.”

We both look down at his hands. He snatches them away very quickly. Crosses his arms, then puts his hands in his pockets and apologizes again. “Hey, let me make it up to you,” he says. 

“It’s fine,” I say. “Just trying to get to the elevator.”

Jakob Dylan looks back into the elevator, at his friends who have apparently been holding the doors for me. “Tell her about the party, please?”

Then he gives me a quick, awkward head not and walks away. I get on the elevator. There are two people already there. A guy probably in his 50s and a woman who is younger than him but older than me. 

“Hey so there’s a party tonight. Jakob said to tell you about it,” she tells me.

I very seriously consider it for about five seconds, because I’d be insane to turn down the opportunity to party with rockstars, right?

Maybe if my phone weren’t dead and I could have reached my boyfriend to tell him where I was going, I would have ignored my fatigue and decided differently. But, sensibility prevailed. “Thanks,” I tell her, “but I’m really tired. I just want to go back to my room.” 

She looks shocked. Frankly I’m kind of shocked, too. Jakob Dylan—JAKOB FRIGGIN DYLAN—invited me to a party and I said…no?

“Please tell Jakob I appreciate the invite,” I add, knowing she probably won’t.

It’s dead quiet on the elevator as we ascend the next few floors. Then the older guy, who had been quiet up to that point, nods at me. 

“I like your jacket,” he slurs, indicating my trench coat (it had been raining). “Is it [whatever designer brand was making trendy trench coats in 2008]? I have one just like it, only mine has epaulets.” He hits the “p” in that last word hard and then sustains the “s.”

“No,” I tell him. “This is from H&M.”

“Ah.” He nods—whether sagely or judgmentally, I’m not sure.

More silence. We finally hit my floor. “Have a good night! Enjoy your party,” I say as I step off the elevator. 

I am almost asleep when my boyfriend comes upstairs. He came out $50 ahead at the poker table and decided not to try his luck any further. I tell him about Jakob Dylan, the party invitation, and Mr. “Epaulets.”

“And you didn’t go?!” my boyfriend exclaims.

No, I tell him. I was tired. My phone was dead. It didn’t seem like the smart thing to do. Even if it *was* Jakob Dylan inviting me. 

So anyway, yeah, that’s the story.

I have not had any further encounters with Jakob Dylan.

@petershankman has become a close friend and I talk to him regularly. (Follow him! He’s great.)

The blog I was writing for folded in 2011.

The boyfriend and I went on to buy a house and, as I mentioned, get married.

The wedding was in Atlantic City.

Ten days after Hurricane Sandy.

But that’s another story.

Now, go listen to “Bringing Down the Horse.” It holds up!