A GROWN ASS MAN DINNER IN LA

Maturity, wisdom, friendship and splitting the bill

THIS PHOTO WAS NOT TAKEN LAST NIGHT!

Last night in Los Angeles I had dinner with a group of men I worked on ‘The Get Down’ streaming series with: screenwriters Seth Rosenfeld and Aaron Thomas, and choreographers Rich and Tone Talauega. We all worked together during the show’s long gestation period and formed a strong bond, one that came in handy during the pandemic of 2020. While we talked in passing about that Netflix hip-hop series, we mostly focused on the contemporary (the Katt Williams interview, mumble rap, Afro Beats, this NBA season, wokeness in the workplace, the post-strike marketplace) and family. We talked quite a bit about resilience. Life is not controlling the narrative, but responding to the nasty rewrites that come your way.

Though all of us have met in various combinations since the pandemic ended, it was the first time all five of us had broken bread together since an outdoor gathering at the height of the plague. It was good to sit with some grown ass men and talk candidly about life in this crazy era. As happens a lot for me now, this dinner made me reflect on the men who are no longer here, the guys who passed too young who I chopped it up with back when my hair was black, back when I had a hair line.

In my hotel room later, I experienced a spasm of grief when I realized I am staying down a long block and around the corner from where a good friend died of a heart attack in 2020. Grief can be called many things. One way I view it is as an uninvited guest, the kind who shows up unannounced, asks for seconds at dinner, drinks up all your brandy, and then falls dead asleep on your sofa, snoring loudly. The MF just won’t go. Eventually you coax the uninvited guest out of the house but, come dinner time, he’s back at your table with a big appetite. You can meditate. You can cry. You can run until your lungs hurt. But grief never completely leaves. It’s a heartache that no transplant can cure.

I’ve lost many important members of my friendship network in the last five years. I sometimes I find myself thinking, “What would Andre or Gary think of this?” or “Wouldn’t it be great to work with Mtume or Reg on this piece?” I’ve had moments when I’ve gotten so caught up in what’s loss that I forget to value who’s here.

But what can be felt can also be shared. Not long after Andre Harrell’s death in 2020, I linked up with a small group at an outdoor restaurant in West Hollywood, just a few blocks from where he died. The stylist/businessman O’Neal McKnight, the director Allen Hughes, and a couple of other guys gathered around a fireplace and lit cigars. Due to Covid-19 none of us had been able to attend the private services for Dre back east, so we had our own little ceremony. I had been an on and off cigar smoker for a few years and I don’t drink. But we sat in a circle, lit up sticks, and took shots, sharing memories of a unique individual. It was cathartic to share our pain, anger, and laughs. It didn’t make grief go away, but it made mourning easier.

Before this period, I’d always liked to have group gatherings. On ‘The Get Down’ I’d organized a number of posse events for our young cast and the creative team. But as I’d gotten older the friends of my 20s and 30s had disbursed and I spent more time with my future wife than male friends. But these many deaths, and the separation caused by the pandemic, heightened the need for connection. It was after this meeting celebrating Andre that I became an regular cigar smoker, not just for the taste, but the fellowship the habit engenders.

Since then I’ve hosted or arranged conference calls, lunches, and dinners with old friends and acquaintances, some of whom I hadn’t seen in decades, honoring our shared past. We toasted the departed (mostly with non-alcoholic beverages) over good meals. We also dived into the world we live in now, talking wives, kids, and the aches of middle age, and laughing about no longer important secrets. Perhaps not coincidentally, in the last few years I’ve collaborated with old friends on a medley of projects. (In fact I’m out in Hollywood now supporting an old friend’s new dream.)

At the end of the dinner with ‘The Get Down’ posse, we split the bill and shared hugs all around. I believe the only time anyone had taken out his phone at the table was so Rich could show video of his son’s latest soccer match. As we went our separate ways, I realized no one had organized a group photo. How very old school of us! If no one took a posse photo had the dinner actually happened?

Indeed, it had.