Hi Readers,

There is magic and mysticism in the world. I know that to be true. This new story of mine helps explain why I believe that.

Continue past this very recent photo of me and my magic watch to read it…

In 2007, I hadn’t thought about my watch for a long time. It had been nearly thirteen years since I lost it at a Beastie Boys concert in the Czech Republic.

It was an expensive Bulova watch. One that I wouldn’t normally wear, but my girlfriend, Lisa-Raquel, gave it to me in San Francisco before I boarded a plane to live in Prague. Lisa and I were in love then, so it meant a lot to me. But I didn’t know it was magical yet.

That October morning, I was home in Northern California after a U.S. tour and rehearsing for an upcoming European tour, when an email appeared in my inbox. It was from a name and address I didn’t know, with the subject line:

Lost Watch, Prague, 1995

Suddenly, I was more than curious. I opened the email, and it said:

This is going to sound strange, I am sure, but I believe I have a watch that you may have lost in Prague. Did this happen to you? If not, sorry to bother you. Thanks, Ken

I was whisked back in time to Sportovní hala (Prague’s Sports Arena), standing in the pit in front of the stage watching Luscious Jackson. They were opening for the Beastie Boys, and I remember thinking that the keyboardist played the same Korg keyboard as I did.

After the opener ended, the Beasties took the stage with fire. The band was touring on their recent album, Ill Communication, and when MCA (aka Adam Yauch) began the introductory strummed bass riff for their single, Sabotage, the audience buzzed with energy.

Then, the band dove into the song, and the pit became a writhing mass of bodies feverishly jumping up and down. I was just as excited as all of the Czechs next to me. Punks, skaters, and scenesters all bounced up and down in a giant symmetric pack.

In the middle of it all, I felt my left wrist with my right hand. When I realized my watch was gone, my heart dropped. For the rest of the concert, all I could do was think about my missing timepiece.

The show ended, the crowd left, and I stayed, surveying every corner of the metal lattice floor, searching for my Bulova. After two hours, I gave up, defeated, believing it had been crushed into metallic dust by thousands of moshing feet.

Now, years later, I stared suspiciously at my laptop screen, wondering if this email I’d just received was a prank. Then, I typed an email back to Ken:

That is crazy. I did lose a watch in Prague in 1995. At a Beastie Boys show. How did you know I lost it? And how did you get it?

Within minutes, I received another email from Ken:

At the concert, I worked my way up to the front with some friends. One friend dropped something, and we both went down to pick it up. When we both rose back up, I had your watch. It had fallen into a space in the floor and lay there safely until I picked it up. It has nary a scratch on it.

I was shocked, but I instantly knew Ken was not making this up. He had found my watch. Our emails continued, each of us sitting in front of our keyboards.

Ken revealed that he had tried to find me through the Beastie Boys’ music label, Grand Royal, and with no luck, he put the watch in a box. Then, he left Prague and moved back to the States. Even though I had assumed he was European, Ken was American and lived in Texas.

I wrote back:

The fact that the watch survived that show is incredible, but the fact that you still have the watch after thirteen years is miraculous. How did you know it was mine? And how did you find me?

Immediately, Ken wrote:

I have been trying for years and years to find you. I guess you don’t recall, but there is an inscription on the back of the watch. It says:

Gentry. My dearest and favorite thing. Lisa-Raquel

Not only had I forgotten about the watch, but I’d also long forgotten about the words on the back.

Emails flashed back and forth between us, and in another message, Ken said he’d recently found the watch again in an old box. In 1995, the internet was still in its infancy, but in 2007, he could search the web.

My uncommon first name and Lisa’s uniquely hyphenated one led to my being found on Lisa’s Myspace. From there, Ken found my website and my email.

Ken had found my watch and didn’t sell it or keep it for himself. Instead, he searched for the owner, and when he couldn’t locate me, he saved it for thirteen years until the time was right to find me on the internet. It was astounding.

I wondered whether I should let him keep the watch, but then I thought about what it had meant to me when I was a poor, young, hopeless romantic. So, I wrote:

I’m tempted to let you keep the watch for being so incredibly cool, but it meant a lot to me. Would you be willing to send it to San Francisco? I’ll pay for postage.

Ken’s response was:

I’ll send it right along. Don’t worry about postage. I’m just happy I am finally able to return it to you after all this time.

The watch arrived the next day. Overnight delivery. And it arrived in near-perfect condition, just like Ken had written, but frozen in time. I took it to a watch repair store, had the battery replaced, and the hands immediately began to move again. I bought a new, black leather watch band and put on my magic watch.

I emailed Ken to thank him, offered him tickets to attend any concert of mine for free, anywhere or anytime, and I insisted that when we finally met in person, I would buy him a beer and dinner.

Then, years passed.

In 2011, I emailed Ken again:

It’s been four years since we last emailed, and I’ve thought about you lots of times. I’m on tour in Europe right now, and I was just in Prague performing. So, I thought of you. I wear the watch every day and at every show. I call it my magic watch and tell the story of you returning it to me all the time, both on stage and off.

Ken replied:

Back in Prague! I haven’t been back since ’95. I am humbled that you still tell that story. As I wrote four years ago, I was just getting things back to the way they should be. As for me, I moved back to LA about a year and a half ago, so next time I’m up in SF, I’ll look you up, and we can grab that beer.

Wearing the watch continuously reminded me of the generosity and integrity of human beings. Ken’s actions represented those traits, and it was why the watch was magical to me. But the watch held even more magical powers that would eventually reveal themselves.

The next time Ken and I connected, it was 2014. Twenty years since I received the watch as a gift.

During the previous three years, I wrote and produced more records and performed countless shows in the States, Europe, and Mexico. Then, I severely burned out in a giant emotional and mental self-immolation, and reluctantly crash-landed in Minnesota, where I grew up.

Also during that time, Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys — an incredible musician, activist, and Buddhist — died. And the band ended with his death.

My magic watch didn’t seem to possess much magic then. Everything was deeply disconnected, and I was trying to connect with someone, anyone.

I emailed Ken, and my words included these:

The anniversary of you getting in touch with me to return my magic watch is close, my friend. Even though I’ve never met you, I feel like you’re a kindred spirit, a traveler, and one of the people who proved to me that people are amazing throughout the world.

Ken wrote that he had moved north of Los Angeles to San Luis Obispo and continued with this:

I was telling the story to someone at work the other day. As I’m sure happens with you, the sheer craziness of it always leaves the audience spellbound. I even found a photo of you wearing the watch and showed it to them. It’s a great story that I’m glad to be part of.

Things are good here for me; much has fallen into place. Not everything, but many things. I always want to leave, and I always want to stay. I am now, as then, honored and humbled that you still tell the story of me fondly. It’s not an overstatement to say it’s a salve on the sometimes-broken soul.

Though I’d never met Ken in the flesh, I truly felt he was a kindred spirit. A fellow searcher and someone who experienced life’s poetry. Someone who knew what it was like to be broken, as I was then.

But it was a very long time before we connected again.

A decade passed, and I was in the middle of my seventh sultry summer in New Orleans. While relaxing on my patio in the backyard one evening with my girlfriend, Whitney, and our two dogs, I checked my phone. An email had landed in my inbox from Ken.

In ten years, a lot of life had happened, and much change transpired. I semi-retired from being a musician, started a media and creative agency, and happily reinvented myself in New Orleans.

By then, my magic watch had stopped working, and it lived in a box again, forgotten. As I read Ken’s email, I thought of the timepiece again:

​​Hey Gentry! I was just thinking about the old watch story. Wondering how you’re doing.

My email back was hopeful this time:

Hi Ken! Are you still in California? How’s life? I still owe you that beer, but it may have to be quaffed in one of our mystically dank, dirty, and beautiful bars here in New Orleans.

Ken said that, like me, he had left California and lived in Delaware. Neither of us had been to Prague in a long time, but our bond remained. Then, he sent this:

Funny enough, a friend I used to work with in Prague owned a bar down in New Orleans. She was aware of the watch story and that I was searching for a Gentry, but who knows if she’d remember. Her name is Suzanne. Last I heard, she moved across the river.

As it turned out, in a city packed to the gills with marvelous cocktail bars, Pal’s Lounge was one of my favorites. I sometimes hung out there, and it had the best jukebox in the city. I told Ken all about it and that I would go into Pal’s to see if Suzanne was still there.

When Ken heard that, he wrote:

She’ll be the redhead with the big personality.

Before I shut down my laptop that night, I sent one more email explaining that the watch had stopped working, and Ken wrote back:

That’s okay. It serves as a talisman now.

I loved that. A talisman. That night, I found my magic watch and brought it back out into the light once again.

A few weeks passed, and one late afternoon, I went into Pal’s to see if Suzanne might still be there. My favorite bartender, Char, was behind the bar, wearing a torn tank top and jean shorts with frayed edges, happy to see me.

After I was served my second martini, I asked, “Hey, Char, does Suzanne still own this place? I never knew who the owner was.”

“Oh, yeah,” Char said. “Suzanne owns Pal’s. She doesn’t come in that much. Maybe once or twice a week. Wanna leave a note?”

Excitedly, I scrawled a note in my toddler-level handwriting. Then I left.

Several weeks passed. I hadn’t thought about my note since leaving it, and I received a message. It was on LinkedIn, which was strange because I very rarely used that app to communicate. Normally, I would have deleted it, but the message stood out:

Hi Gentry, did you happen to leave this message at Pal’s for me? Suzanne

Attached with it was a photo of my barely legible note that I’d left with Char. It was on a bar receipt and read:

Prague. 1995. Watch. Beastie Boys. Ken. He found me. $16. 8/11/24. Gentry Bronson

Only the first part of the note was mine. The cost of my martinis, the date, and my full name were Char’s additions. Thankfully so, because Suzanne had used them to find me.

Suzanne and I began messaging, and I told her the tale of Ken and my magic watch. We discovered that not only did we share Prague and New Orleans, but we were also both former San Franciscans. We agreed that we had to meet, and I would bring the watch.

In September of 2024, I walked into Pal’s, sat down on a stool, ordered a drink, and waited for Suzanne to emerge from her office upstairs. When she appeared, she was exactly who Ken had said: the redhead with a big personality.

Suzanne and I sat for hours, had drinks, laughed, and reminisced about events we never had together, but which we shared in time and place. The connections were endless. She even intimately knew a dive bar I used to play in Oakland in 2001 and had considered buying it. We were instant friends.

Before I left Pal’s that night, we took a photo together with me holding my magic watch between us and sent it to Ken. It was a goofy, drunken photo, and it was perfect.

My magic watch had shown another of its hidden powers: it connected people. Its power brought people together in addition to bringing out their generosity, integrity, and kindness.

More than three decades have passed since I received my watch as a gift. All the magical events it has caused have become an epic tale, filled with mythological characters in exotic lands.

It began with two young lovers on the Barbary Coast. Lisa-Raquel was one, and I was the other. There, she gave me the watch because I was her dearest and favorite thing.

When I lost the watch in Bohemia while celebrating the Beasties, it broke my heart. But it was found by a hero named Ken, who searched for years to find me. After I was found, he returned the watch to its rightful owner, and we became friends who wrote to each other about our adventures for years.

Then, times grew dark, a Beastie died, and the watch stopped. All seemed lost. But eventually, the power of the magic watch led to a mighty redhead with a tavern in the Crescent City named Suzanne.

As I write, that’s where the tale is today. But it’s far from over.

There will be a day when Ken and I finally meet in person, and then he, Suzanne, and I will have a drink together at Pal’s while the Beastie Boys play on the jukebox. I’ll buy the first round, and we’ll toast to Lisa-Raquel and all the places and people we’ve met along the way.

I know this will happen because I have a talisman. A watch with magical powers. It just doesn’t tell the time anymore.

This story was also published by The Narrative Arc on Medium under the umbrella of Parasol Publications.

Read more of my writing, find information about my albums, and learn about the work I do with my wonderfully talented clients at GentryBronson.com.

Gentry Bronson Media and Creative