The Irresistible Patti Brown

Tuning 91 this week, God willing, and I still look like shit....'Everything changes, everything remains the same'.

So in my 50's along comes Patti Brown a once practicing Catholic but with her Irish still shining through her spiritual soul. Strong feelings of community are the basis of spirituality and Patti was loaded with a great sense of community.

Beautiful, slightly chunky, big boobs, very smart and an enthusiastic tennis player, with easy laughter, was Patti Brown. Jews and Catholics seem to connect easily and often. Jesus was a Jew so we have 'Jews For Jesus' which I always thought was a punch line for a religious joke.

Thinking of those big boobs reminds me of the first and only time that I tried sex on Patti. So one evening, Patti was sitting in my lap, a little tipsy from inhaling too much wine (or else why would she be in my lap) and Patti said, "I feel horny."

Taking that comment as a signal from God my left hand went swiftly and directly to Patti's right tit. Patti brushed my hand away and she left my lap as though she was shot out of a fucking cannon. For sure, Patti wasn't that horny.

Patti became a focus of my life, sexless notwithstanding. Patti was a notch above slightly crazy but really smart, a wonderful combination. Being around totally predictable and sane people is really plenty fucking boring. Patti was anything but boring.

And Patti loved to laugh which, for me, was a substitute for an orgasm. (How was I to know that at around age 87 me and orgasms would take different paths?)

Patti was a dedicated devotee of astrology and our 'signs' made us a 'perfect' pair. Until Patti, gratefully, came into my life, cancer was a sickness and a scorpion was a deadly fucking bug. Turned out that Cancer and Scorpio are Astrological signs.

Also it turns out that Patti and I may have been a perfect pair in Astrology but not in life. We went out a lot. No dating. 'Dating' implies sex of which I enjoyed none with Patti. We just went out, a lot.

Fortunately Patti's Irish DNA didn't include the Irish proclivity for booze. ('An Irish queer is a guy who likes women better than booze.' Quote forever true).

In the late seventies EST and having your colors done, were the rage. EST had its pseudo shrink approach where no matter how good your life was, they were going to make it better. The Princess had thrown me out. How much better could life be?

Getting your 'Colors' done was a Patti Brown, off the wall, kind of a thing. So up to SF Patti schlepped my Jewish ass to get my colors done. Which meant finding out which color clothes best suited my personality which in turn would make made me more attractive. At that time my 'Brioni Awakening' hadn't really yet happened. Takes a lot to look like shit in a Brioni suit.

Throw in Turnbull, Asser shirts, Hermes ties, Weston shoes and even I could look good. Never great until I became eligible for the third of three stages in life. First you are young, then you become middle aged, then you're looking great.

After hours of being questioned by a color 'expert', who was a nice woman and clearly a frustrated shrink and quite a bits nuts, I was declared an Autumn. Patti's presence saved me from institutionalizing myself during the q and a.

We then went to the North Beach Restaurant and had a great WOP dinner and headed, exhausted and stuffed, back to Palo Alto on the then new Hwy. 280. Very light traffic made it feel like a deserted, back road in those early days.

Patti asked if she could take a nap. A day that included going to the City, talking to the whacked out colors woman and directing my colors inquisition had wiped out that poor broad. I told Patti to do it. Then, in spite of having a ton of coffee earlier and driving 70 miles an hour, I joined her for a quick nap.

My eyes opened when the car took down two saplings, slammed into and under a chain link fence and bounced off of huge oak tree before it came to a halt. Driving on snow and ice in Iowa had taught me not to hit the brakes. My Mercedes convertible was totaled but thanks to God, both Patti and I were able to walk across the field to a lone house and get rides home. Both of us virtually unscathed.

The punch line to that saga is that unbeknownst to me, the Princess, in all her fucking self righteousness, had cancelled my car insurance. Starting over for me without a car was made all the more tough.

I had just quit drinking and Patti, was wonderful to and for me. Patti gave me a purpose in life with her smile, laughter, brains and her touch of insanity. (It takes one, to know one).

Saw Patti, the other day, for the first time in decades and she looked fabulous. Slim, trim, beautiful and still with a knockout smile and laugh.

In the end Patti's Astrologer was on the money in telling Patti to 'kiss me off'. Living with someone brings out the worst in me. Which can be plenty bad.

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