Sometime in 2003, I decided that I wanted to throw myself a 50th Birthday party in the upcoming year. It isn't quite as selfish as it seems. Getting to 50 was a big deal to me. My mother hadn't made it. I had been blessed with quite a number of people in and out of my life, many who were still percolating around me, who had contributed to its arc. I wanted to do something that would be a real sharing of myself, something I do not do easily. But a party I could do.
I wrote a little invitation around Christmas 2003, I think, and sent it to people from various times and parts of my life, growing up (family and grade school and high school friends), my work life (then the State Bar) and my Church Life (then and now St. Victor in West Hollywood). Although I am not much of a swimmer, I have always liked the Ocean and times around the Pacific, whether lolling on the beach staring at the waves, or having a nice dinner at the former Chart House, or Duke's. And the ocean is a visual marker for the passage of time (remember The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, the movie, where the crashing waves are the film's measure of the passing of Mrs. Muir's life with the dashing, ghost of Captain Gregg?). So, it seemed perfect. I had a favorite restaurant at the time, still on the Pacific Coast Highway, called Moonshadows, though like all things in this world, modernity messed it up (in my view). So, I made inquiry, over a free lunch (I think) and booked their little room just off the main dining area, guessing that of those I invited, some from the East, some from up north, in San Francisco, and one from Australia, about 60is would show up. I could do a choice of dinner, with appetizers, and wine for what seemed to me a reasonable price. My father, the financially careful child of the Depression, was not pleased I was paying for my own birthday and tried ever so hard to find out exactly how much I was expending. I never did tell him. I decided that for a few of those potential visitors I would get a few rooms at the Malibu Beach Inn. That too was (and is) right on the water, and I knew that I wanted to spend the overnight of my birthday gathering sleeping in a room with the rush of the waves as natural music. And I hoped that the friends who could come from elsewhere in the States would enjoy the overnight and a nice continental breakfast on the main terrace as much as I would.
There weren't many such places right on the beach. I just ran across a 2008 article in the New York Times that describes the Inn at around the time I booked it, as an "adequate, but faded affair". The Times was lauding the reality that in the mid-2000s, David Geffen had bought it and remade it from a quiet place where celebrities sometimes stayed anonymously, along with the truly anonymous among us, (as it happens the weekend I was there Diana Ross was puttering around, and a few of us ran across her as we wended our way to our rooms), to another celebrity haunt the rest of us could never afford now between $655 and 823 for a standard room. It wasn't that cheap then, about $230 a room. But given where it was, the views, the sense of utter wonder of nature, and sharing it with friends, I thought it was worth every dollar. To me, the place was more than adequate. It was perfect.
I read that David Geffen no longer owns it, having sold it to others. Me, I never liked the renovation, I would define as an adequate, but disappointing glitzy, but the locale is still spectacular, albeit now inaccessible to the likes of me. Should I do a 70th, as I am considering, it will not be a the beach, alas. But I have ideas.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/malibu-beach-inn-a-first-896861/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/felicitycarter/2021/12/26/10-things-to-know-about-malibu-beach-inn/?sh=45e902eaaf95
I can't say that I have ever enjoyed the enjoyment of others so much. Several friends came from New York, from San Francisco, from Missouri, and even that one from Australia. People who did not know each other communed with pleasure. Someone kept buying me cosmos, then popular (and not part of my package). My keyboardist was late, but he finally made it, and no one was the worse for wear either way as the conversation never lagged. There was some sad wistfulness, as I will detail later, in that two people whom I cared deeply about died that Spring, one before the party, and the other just after it.
Dad resisted the whole production, and curmudgeon that he could be, complained that the food was not to his standard (he never felt that any restaurant measured up, especially if he thought the price was exorbitant, as always he did), but despite himself, you can see in photographs that he enjoyed himself. One of the invitees who could not come was Sophia, the woman I have written about before, that he had dated in the 1970s. He mistook one of my other friends (who indeed looks like Sophia) for her.
Above. Me, my cousin Carol and Mike. I did an Ethics presentation at Pepperdine that weekend, as well, which they attended.
Below, what the Malibu Beach Inn in 2004.
And the special events menu at Moonshadows.
Below, some samples of cards for the 50 year old.
Below, Veronica (who just died at age 99 this past August), only her head visible in the photo, Joey, Jim, the waiter, Mike and Jessica, the latter two my boss and colleague.
The card above from Veronica, which made me laugh at the time because she was such a prim and proper soul. She also sent me a Mass card, so she covered the secular, and the spiritual for my birthday.
Karen, Cyd, Geri, Janet and me. Alas, since my retirement I have lost touch with most of these wonderful ladies.
Above, I had forgotten that I once gave one of my childhood books to Bob and Ellen's son Matt. I have done that before, and since, since I have no children of my own, and these kids, (now all in their 30s), were and are important to me.
Above and below. Someone (Noreen) gave me a star. Noreen could not come for the party with her husband Gary. She was a star herself, to me. She passed in 2010, a loss to all of us. And a nice gift for cancer research in honor of my mother.
Standing in front of the picture window of the ocean and a bunch of photographs from my memory drawer.
A thank you note from Kay, who had been ambivalent about the large gathering. Kay has also since passed on (a couple of years ago). Below, me with Peter, David with Cyd, Geri with Kathy, Dane with Maridee, my dad dancing with I don't know who, me enjoying myself.
Dad with Janet, David again, Ellen, Bob and Len, three of my oldest friends.
Ellen in hat. Me and my cousin Carol, that one at an earlier lunch, Dad with Carol in his apartment.
Dad with Carol at the party. Dad would be with me until 2008, just having turned 90.
Above, Maridee and me at breakfast the next morning. What a place that Inn was!
As I said, there is always the wistful part of the wonderful in life. I can report that several of the people who attended the party I still have a relationship with, but some, I lost contact with as our lives diverged. Some moved. Some got other jobs. I retired. A few passed on. I remember two of those who died because their passing coincided with my gaining that 50th year.
The first is Fran Bassios. Fran's first name was actually Photios, a Saint of the Greek Orthodox Church. Fran was of Greek extraction. Maybe that was part of the connection for me, that he and I shared that ancestry, albeit me only a quarter on my father's side. When I arrived at the State Bar, Fran was the Acting Chief Trial Counsel. I arrived during one of the thousands of crises (I only sort of exaggerate) for the State Bar and it's Disciplinary arm, in 1986. The staff of attorneys had unionized and were threatening to strike (and they did right as I began my career there, as you can imagine, stressful for the new employee) and Fran was a lightning rod for dissatisfaction. He was not an easy man to please, and with my psychological profile, he was, of course, the kind of person I needed to please--to whom to prove myself. He kept a distance emotionally from others. I did the same thing. I understood it. I found him to be a kindred spirit, though we would never talk deeply enough for me to admit that to him. Only once did I have an intense conversation with him, a disagreement, really, and we ended up, uncharacteristically for both of us, I still think, hugging. He was a mentor when I was at the Bar. He was often the Acting Chief Trial Counsel in our revolving door of Chief Trial Counsel, and frankly, he should have been made the Chief, but he just wasn't political enough (in my view); he said what he thought and that never bodes well for the person committed to the job and not to the smoke and mirrors. Ultimately, he got kicked upstairs. I invited him to my gathering. I would have been proud to have him there. But he was already not well, as only a few of us knew. He declined. We had a long conversation a few weeks before he died, on April 4, 2004. He was his usual cynical self. Below is the announcement that was sent to all of us by one of our executives.
Only about eleven days after the party another person who meant a great deal to me died, suddenly, at the too young age of 57. His name is Bill. To me, and to others I have come to know over the years, who feel the same way, he was a great man. He was a psychologist, as his own daughter has become. I went to his funeral just a few weeks later in Massachusetts, where he had moved in 1999, with his family to be closer to his parents. When I saw how others (whom I had never met before) had regarded him, with such intense caring and affection, my own sense of having been around someone of a special undefinable grace was confirmed. No person on this earth is perfect, but this one touched many lives in a way that was unique in its goodness.
2004 was a good year. It was also a sad year. But I was, and remain, grateful for it. So, I will leave this entry with a smile, from a very old picture. It probably is a favorite because I remember being in a really good mood that day, someplace around 1980. It was taken in upstate New York at a lake near the summer home of a college friend of mine (and his wife, both of whom I still know). I never liked my puffy arms and I probably wasn't eager to have the picture taken, so I put the news paper close to me and laughed. I wasn't even 30 yet. Oh, how time passes. Brings a tear to my eye I can tell you. Truly.
I know that I would have never considered I'd be arranging a 50th birthday party in Malibu in a mere 24 years.
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