May 25, 2005 – Seeing the World Through Another’s Eyes

May 24, 2005 – Seeing the World Through Another’s Eyes

I’ve mentioned my friend Don S in an earlier blog. He passed away a while back. I’ll have to look up when it actually was. It’s terrible not to remember the date someone who meant something to you passed on. I only bring this up because Don was beyond retirement age when I met him but he was still active in his public relations firm. He had a network of friends that included the movers and shakers of his generation, actors, musicians, politicians, journalists, scientists, as well as the everyday guys like me. He treated them all with the same respect and received it in kind. He and his dear wife E, a native Californian and native San Franciscan who lives with her grand daughter in Southern California now, believed in a religion that practiced what in simple California terms can be summed up as spreading good Karma. No good deed went unrewarded, the two of them vehemently believed. It was something that I most admired about the two of them.

Don lived a charmed life. He was born with a beautiful tenor voice that earned him a living as a headliner at the St Francis Hotel in the 1930s. When radio went looking for talent, they found Don singing in San Francisco at the St. Francis and Bing Crosby in Los Angeles at the Coconut Grove. NBC put both of them on one after the other late night and everyone in earshot had the pleasure of his voice just like those well-heeled folks listening to him live. He sang with some of the big bands of the era. He even took a turn at being an actor. He auditioned for a part in a musical and his competition was Tony Martin. Don recalls loosing the part because Martin could hit a note he couldn’t quite reach. Sometime in the late 30s, he gave up his life as a singer and became a successful columnist for one of the San Francisco papers. I forget which now. He was also the restaurant critic and for a long number of years had tables waiting for him in all the best restaurants of the city. He moved from journalism into publicity and made a number of clubs and restaurants in San Francisco famous: Bimbo’s, the Forbidden City—a Chinese nightclub restaurant featuring Chinese singers and dancers performing western cabaret. He was also instrumental in getting the Hungry i off the ground. Mr. San Francisco, Cyril Magnin—founder of the up-market women’s clothier Joseph Magnin, Co., since purchased—had asked him to help the aspiring political careers of at least one City Councilman. As you can see Don was multifaceted and found interest in everything around him.

He had moved from publicity into public relations becoming affiliated with a group of small PR shops located around the world, some with a handful of people, others with larger staffs. I never saw him with more than himself, E, and a couple of clerical support staff. In the late 1960s his clients were the large Japanese conglomerates, Hitachi, the New Otani Hotel among others, who were looking to find U.S. partners and Don’s address book provided his clients with the right high level contacts. He arranged golf outing at Pebble Beach and the other great courses in the U.S. where these powerful men could meet and build relationships. When I met Don—I don’t recall how he got my name—he was pitching a small Silicon Valley start-up who happen to have, as its advisor and board member a well-known scientist on the Manhattan project. He needed me to write some press releases and a media background piece. I produced the materials and the next thing I know, Don had gotten them a quarter-page editorial piece in Business Week. The company never became a giant but it’s still around.

This was during the early 1980s and Northern California wine was starting to get an international reputation. Don had Geyser Peak Winery as a client and the owner wanted to promote the idea of wine in a can. Don got them a nice write up in Business Week but the can never took off. It was during this time that Don discovered the computer and he took to it with complete abandon. I continued to write for him on occasion, but more often than not, he would have me come into the office to talk about computers so he could get into the language—use the terminology correctly. He and E had IM and I over to his house on Russian Hill—a 180-degree view of San Francisco Bay on occasion—it was always a treat. The middle of the 1980s, high tech went into a slump and the prosperity in Northern California likewise felt less prosperous. Don had to downsize and move from the upper floors of a high rise office building on Market near 3rd Street—on the southwestern corner of Market and 3rd—to a third-floor office with an entrance on Third rather than the grand entrance on Market.

His network of PR companies were all experiencing the same changes Don was—clients were moving away from small shops to larger agencies with big names and national and international offices. Only the Japanese clients remained loyal to the end. As Don hung up his shingle, they invited Don and E for a two-week stay in Japan at the New Otani Hotel. Business Class roundtrip airline accommodations, they were feted throughout the time of their stay. Don could never quite retire, though. One day he was walking on the sidewalk in front of the Crowne Plaza Hotel on Sutter Street in San Francisco. He blacked out and fell. The hotel doorman called an ambulance and he was taken to the hospital where the doctor found he had experienced a stroke. A month or so later, he invited IM and me to have dinner with him and E. He had returned from the hospital and had gotten his strength back. When we arrived Don showed little sign of any debilitating effect from the stroke. He spoke his rapid-fire speech with its colorful language—he wrote the way he spoke and I loved listening to him and reading what he wrote. After dinner, he and I sat sipping the last of the wine we had for dinner. He turned to me in a somber tone and asked if I felt he owed me anything. I told him no, it was the other way around I was in his debt. He smiled and told me we were even. It wasn’t long after that, he passed away in his sleep.

Don taught me a lot about the world. When I met him he was a bit older than I am now. He was experiencing then what I’m experiencing now. The world he knew was fast being lost in the past. All the people he knew who had not achieved the recognition of super stardom like Bing Crosby were unknown to increasing numbers of those around him. I barely knew Phil Harris—a bandleader Don sang for; I vaguely knew the Manhattan Project scientist who headed the small start up he represented; I knew Cyril Magnin, but I doubt anyone reading this blog will know that name—I can’t “google” him and get any information; I knew Tony Martin as a kid but unless you’re into old movies the name is not readily recognizable. All the people Don knew who made the world work had been replaced by a new generation who were making the world run in an entirely different way. They wanted to work with people who shared their life experience, not someone from an earlier generation, who shared little in common with them.

I am now seeing in those younger than me what Don saw in me. I wish he were still around so I could tell him so.