He Was a Friend of Mine

Oct 04, 2024

“Friend” is a word I value. A word which I don’t use or take lightly. As in “Facebook friend”. The true word simply deserves more respect and heart than that the one Mr. Zuckerberg has created for billions of social media connections around the planet. Because, at its core, “friend” resonates more with words like “trust”, “loyalty”, and “longevity”. Because the word “friend” also has substance to it, something “Facebook” and merely “acquaintance” simply don’t.

There is a sad and beautiful song about friendship that I love. It’s called “He Was a Friend of Mine”. My favorite version was sung by Dave Van Ronk, the very salty and crusty folksinger with the raspy voice who was known as “The Mayor of Greenwich Village” back in the early, counter-cultural 1960s. Van Ronk was sort of a mentor and godfather to Bob Dylan when Dylan first arrived on the scene in 1961, still wet behind the ears, fresh from the red iron ore mines of Hibbing, Minnesota. You should listen to Van Ronk’s song on YouTube below. Maybe even while reading this post.

Friendship is a bond we must choose to nurture. Not that it’s easy. We’ve all had close friends, in both childhood and adulthood, from whom we’ve drifted apart. Some by choice, others by just… the vagaries, twists, and turns of life. Friendship of “convenience” is more common - friends in school classes, at work, in clubs, at spiritual and religious centers, via professional connections, and now for me here in Santa Fe for just two years… on the pickleball court. However, I discovered the difference between “friend” and “acquaintance” when only a few pickleballers showed up at my 77th birthday bash here in Santa Fe, while others, who promised to come, never did. Still, I hold nothing against any of them; we weren’t true “friends” yet.

Because I think true friendship goes deeper, n’est-ce pas? A friend should be someone you can count on. In good times and in bad. A close friend: someone you can share your ideas, feelings, and hopefully, your travails with, even your secrets. Someone who will pick you up when your car breaks down and you don’t have a AAA card. A trusted person who will loan you money when you need it, and who you will loan money to, not really expecting to ever have it returned. Someone who encourages you when you’re not feeling all that good about yourself. Someone who you want to see succeed, to have love in their life, along with creativity and prosperity. Ideally, there would be little to no competition or jealousy between you and your good friend (if only).

I’ve lost friends for many reasons, like I’m sure you have. Geography, the passage of time, growing in different directions, simply growing “up” and moving on. One of the most painful ways to lose a friend in my life has been through “jealous wives”. Sounds strange, doesn’t it, but it has happened to me many times, especially when I was a much younger man, footloose and fancy free in my artistic heyday.

I could be perfectly “tight” with another “single guy” back in the day. Steve, Louie, Peter. Usually, in the cases I’m talking about, I would be the experienced one, and my friend would be learning things like creativity, self-expression, and freedom from me. There’s nothing like the expansive and explosive freedom of being an improvisational dancer… or wilder yet, an improvisational… clown!

But then… over time… as life would have it… Steve, Louie, Peter… all got married. I attended their weddings, attempted to keep up each of the close friendships. But… each and all of the new wives were … jealous. They didn’t want their new husbands to stay close to me, to be poisoned and influenced by my creative and bohemian ideas. And… over a very short time… Steve, Louie, and Peter… were no longer my friends. Trules was ex-communicated from their “circle of trust”, as Robert De Niro’s character, Jack Byrnes, says comically, in “Meet the Fockers”. And just like that, each friendship I had was “focked”… although not so comically… if you catch my drift.

Maybe because I’ve always been in the arts: in dance and theater companies, in theater shows, producing arts festivals… I had a clown company of my own, the Cumeezi Bozo Ensemble, in New York for years. I was a faculty member at USC’s School of Dramatic Arts for 31 years; I had thousands of students and many, many colleagues. So maybe because of this, I’ve always had “a lot of friends”. And acquaintances… some of whom were in the same dance, theater, and clown companies with me for years. That long-term and intense daily connection ineluctably forms deep psychic and emotional bonds. Like those formed in childhood. Or like those formed by being on the same sports team for years. Or at sleepaway camp. Or college. Or in the military, particularly and painfully, those formed at war. Such bonds endure, and are inevitably worth reunions… over deccades and decades.

I still have many friends from childhood: Rick, Rico, Dr. Bobbha, Enid, all of whom I’ve “substacked” about; but others too, who I haven’t spoken to for years, yet with whom I’m absolutely sure I’d pick up with again like it was just yesterday when we used to play stickball behind Salisbury Elementary School in Westbury, New York, or basketball in high school behind the same red brick school with black asphalt outdoor courts. These are my lifelong amigos who would bail me out of jail (like when I was in Wild Bill Hickok’s jail in Deadwood South Dakota), loan me startup money to fund a new film, or let me sleep on their couch if and when I ever needed to. Hopefully, without their wives’ evictions! (This is not to say that I don’t have good relationships with many of my friends’ wives. I do. I promise.)

Available for iOS and Android

And then there’s… losing a dear friend to the Grim Reaper, death itself. Shock. Grief. Raw heart emptiness. I’ve lost many… more and more recently, of course, as we’ve all aged and gotten closer and closer to decrepitude and our “last exits”. Yet… as tough as it is to lose a dear, dear friend, I’ve found that, just like losing, first my grandparents, and then my own parents, there seems to be something alchemical in the human spirit, at least in mine, that has this magical ability to internalize such loss… to envelop the lost parent or friend… into one’s deepest heart… where at any moment’s recall, chosen or at random, that deceased person can be recalled and cherished again, eternally living, as he or she does, within the tenderness of our heart.

I recently wrote on my other Substack, “Trules Rules”, about the loss of three beloved friends, all from my very first dance company in Chicago in the early 1970s. William, Susan (Max, the Clown), and Barbara, who was also my first girlfriend when I moved to Los Angeles from New York in 1983. And I discovered that… as I searched my memory for them, there they all were… in my heart’s vault… remembering themselves to each of my posts. In full life again. With each of their unique faces, bodies, quirks, and with… our shared nostalgic stories. There they all… were.

My friend, Jack Slater, passed away over 18 years ago, in 2006, having undergone a heroic liver transplant to overcome his long battle with Hep C, a battle which he ultimately lost. Jack penned a Pulitzer Prize-nominated newspaper series about his medical ordeal for the “Seattle Times”, where he characteristically wrote

The answer is there is no answer. Just suffering and, if you’re lucky, meaningful work, good friends, a few opportunities to love, and time to plant tomatoes.

Jack is pictured above in a LA production of Sam Shepard’s “Mad Dog Blues”, the photo created by his good friend, painter Margaret von Biesen, who just recently, also passed away.

Jack had a lot of friends, all of whom loved him madly. He always gave us a good time, whether it was in the theater doing an avant garde show with him, at Chavez Ravine, where he brought us to see his beloved Dodgers, or just about anywhere else. Jack had that gift. A joie de vivre, a passion for life, a moral compass for injustice, an enthusiasm for play, a voice to stand up and be heard.

I first met Jack in Chicago in the early 1970s. Still in his rollicking twenties, he had signed up for a clown class I taught at our modern dance center, and he ended up joining the “MoMing Bozo Ensemble” as one of our most enthusiastic clowns. His clown name was “Alf”, and Alf, like Jack, was raucous, ridiculous, and risk-taking. There was no holding Alf back on the streets of the Windy City, where the troupe created comic mayhem we called “Free Public Laughs”.

I next saw Jack, almost a decade later, at his apartment on 15th Street in Santa Monica, California. I was visiting LA for my first time, and I was his guest, sleeping on the same couch that he had generously offered to actor, Ed Harris, early in Ed’s career. Jack was making a good living back then, employing his rugged, red-haired good looks to make lots of tv commercials.

And what did he do with his good fortune? Of course, he produced new plays. Several of Sam Shepard’s with Ed Harris. Several more of John Steppling’s dark descents into the hell of drug abuse. Risk-taking, cutting-edge theater. Jack had an eye for talent and originality, and he was always generous, committed, and passionate about theater. About art. And politics. And ideas. That’s also what we loved about him.

Early in my artistic journey in LA, Jack asked me to direct his original alos play, THE SLATER BROTHERS, which he co-wrote with Ed Harris, from which Jack and I created a dark, comic two-handed romp with Vincent Pandoliano playing a dumbed down Art Carney to Jack’s dumber-downed Jackie Gleason. We ran it at two theaters simultaneously, where I was introduced to my earliest LA theater friends like Gilbert Johnquest, our set designer, along with The Mums, Rob Sullivan, Jan Munroe, and many, many others.

As he starting aging and his rugged good looks turned craggy, Jack had to suffer the indignities of heartless Hollywood. He turned to house painting and various odd jobs to make a living, still doing theater when he could. But this is when he met Deborah Swets, who became his life partner, and when they also moved to Ballard, Washington, where Jack became a notorious and well-loved school teacher. And where he got into fine art painting and sculpture, as well as growing his tomatoes.

I remember all this… because Jack reminded me, living there with the others… in the chambers of my heart. And I’m sure that many more of his many friends recall Jack equally fondly, with his rich garden of ebullient joy, righteous anger, and selfless generosity. And of course, for what Jack did best…. be our friend.

We all miss you and love you, Jack. We all know that you’re inevitably creating some rabble-rousing trouble… and laughs…. wherever you are now… and of course… growing your tomatoes.

R.I.P.

And to all our other dear and departed “friends”, cherishedly living in our hearts….

Trules

He Was a Friend of Mine

Discussion about this post