Uncompromised life between work and art

There are very few assignments a writer likes to get, but none more than the one which asks you to write an anecdote, a remembrance, and a memory, of a loved one who has just passed on. It is especially hard when they’re taken away when they’re young. Painful when that person has played such an important role in your life. I doubt that I’ll be the only one of Denise’s friends and family, and of course Joe, who will have trouble grasping this unexpected tragedy. I know how much they loved her; I can only imagine how much they’ll miss her.

Sad is not my forte. Nor is serious. I met Denise in New York in the late seventies, 79, I think. We were cast in a play called TOM TOM. It’s plot revolved around a young man coming to grasps with having a disease that should only be whispered. Epilepsy. At the time, I was a practicing epileptic, and the play was about twenty years behind the times. But Denise and I both bonded instantly, through laughter. And not positive happy laughter. Mean spirited and petty laughter. We’d start by making fun of the play, then other actors, then each other, then we’d go out for drinks and make fun of everybody in the New York comedy scene (of which, at the time, we were part of, but didn’t realize it). Denise, being new to the city, and thankfully friendless, found a friend in me for life. She was stunningly beautiful and sexy. Her throaty laugh and knowing eyes, wise so far beyond her years, I had never met anyone so fiercely independent, smart and self knowing. It was as if Sophie Tucker had been reincarnated as Jessica Rabbitt. I was instantly hooked. I made a few life-changing decisions, the details of which I’m sure Denise wouldn’t want me to dive deeply into, and we moved into her apartment on 47th between Lex and Third. And when I say “we”, of course I mean “her”. She demanded that I get my own place, which I did, a filthy rat hole on 36th and 9th. I rarely stayed there, but Denise needed me to have a place I could go to when she kicked me out. I guess this should have been my first hint that we weren’t in this for the long run, but what the hell. She was so damn funny and so goddamn pretty.

The next year or so is filled with fun, fights and me manning up in a way that only a woman like Denise can man a man up. She taught me how to stand my ground, she taught me how have discipline, to fail, to get up and do it again. I don’t know if I taught her anything, except that she was talented and hot. She could see that in the way I looked at her.

She formed a comedy team, with Terry Day, a comic she knew from San Francisco. She pushed me to rejoin my own comedy partner. We worked the same clubs, the IMPROV, and a dump named GOOD TIMES, and it was. Denise and Terry did classic Nichol’s and May comedy. It was a great act. My act basically consisted of me climbing on my partner and acting like a monkey. Denise was witty and sophisticated. She had heart. She couldn’t compromise her art, she never would. New York pretends to be sophisticated, but it’s just really good at pretending. I could hear the clock ticking.

I won’t go into the specifics of our break up, other than to say I was totally at fault and deserved to have that full pot of hot coffee flung at. As I ducked and ran out, I knew that even though we were not meant to be, we were meant to be friends. Soon afterwards she moved back to San Francisco and her Joe, where she found the uncompromised life between work and art, a happy harmony she was able to maintain for many years. It’s as if Denise knew she hadn’t as much time as the rest of us, and so she made sure she wasn’t wasting any time doing anything she didn’t want. In New York, I had begun wasting her time, so she threw a pot of scolding hot coffee at me. Seems like a good way to get rid of any problems.

I am going to miss her very very much.
-Jim Vallely