HOWARD

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writers’ musings:

“Jazz has always been like the kind of man you wouldn’t want your daughter to associate with.”

Duke Ellington

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He didn’t want to leave. Some do, some don’t. Not him. He just wanted to stay. A vampire he wasn’t; he didn’t have an ounce of blood-sucking in him, but he would have settled in for at least three hundred years. A Lestat, de-fanged. He just seemed to love the life he’d uncovered throughout his time on this earth. He certainly wanted to stay forever with HER; he wanted to listen to jazz forever and forever caustically observe the political landscape - he got his mojo going in improv comedy after all, and he found out how good he was at it. From his 20s on he was a jaded ironist even while forever keeping the glee of his youth. He wanted to keep working on any film set that would have him, he wanted to keep showing up on television sound stages forever and ever… He wanted to keep heading off to France to endlessly find fault with the French and their way of doing things.

He never wanted to learn or bothered to learn fluent French - but the truth was that he just wasn’t really any good at it. It just didn’t come easily to him.

Paris, though. Now Paris was his Chinese box, full of hidden drawers, boîtes that he could take delight in discovering; he’d lope along the boulevards and swing into the arrondissements, exploring, discovering. He got elevated joy from leading his friends from America all over Paris. He became a de facto Parisian, without ever abandoning the essence of his Americanisms. When he DID say anything in French his Oregonian accent was almost comically ever-present. It was, of course, love of his French wife Caroline that propelled him to wholeheartedly take France on; he realized that he’d married France. It was in his nature to be ever-curious, ever-adaptable even as he’d mock. He was something of a misanthrope who loved people: French, American, black, white, or green. He could draw out what there was in everyone to interest and amuse him as they offered up their own particularities.

These were a few of his favorite things:

Caroline. Jazz. Reading. Clothes. Dressing. Dressing like a jazz man. Shopping. Reading. Giving gifts. Iconoclasm in dressing. Caroline, always Caroline. All the little dogs they nuzzled en route. Persian rugs. Cigarettes. Reading - always returning to reading. African sculpture. Kitsch. Caroline. Driving. Heading down the Autoroute to Ramatuelle at breakneck speed. (He drove like an Italian in France.) Writing postcards from the edge that were polished gems, pearls of cool, the equivalent of Turkish Delights. Getting wasted, never with alcohol. Caroline. Reading, reading, reading. Jazz. More jazz.

Caroline. My god, he delighted in her. Caroline was his rara ava, the perfect woman for him: French. Not just French: Parisian, thus eccentric. Intelligent. A dresser. Perceptive. Blunt. Truth-telling. A miniature woman full of womanliness. Also a practical little smartie who matched him as a sharpie; both artistes, they crocheted their marriage, fashioning every stitch of their good life. When a young artsy outlier, he never imagined acquiring his beautiful vintage Mediterranean house in the Hollywood Hills, not to mention that pip of an apartment in Paris, or their home above the French Riviera, or membership in that beach club in St. Tropez. He’d gained entree by virtue of his talent and his achievements in the biz, the biz that was love-hate, always was, always will be - - and the best of it for him, was sharing it all with all of us.

Howard could give a Master Class in friendship. He was absolutely a Past Master at it, loyal and engaged. He had a dozen best friends, every one of them as pleasurable and treasurable as the others. He made his friends his family and his friends responded in kind. Being a world-class crony with his pack of cronies brought out his essence. His friends were his milieu. He took enormous pleasure in hanging with my husband, who he admired and revered; ultimately they were both grumpy cannabis-addled professionals who could really deliver the goods.

And when he left, we all came to praise him, not to bury him. But I remain really really frustrated about Howard. This man was a superb writer. This man had a way with words, a way with wit within his words, he was a stylist par excellence. For example:

“It’s always spiffy, hangin’ with René and watching the enchantment of your grandchildren waltzing out onto the floor of The Big Adventure Ballroom. Having a friend like Rene makes this ongoing madness bearable. Life’s blender has been on purée for some time now.”

I always urged him to put his words out into the wider world. He’d shrug. And the next month he’d send us yet another fabulous postcard, with his freewheeling cursive, signed HH.