Remembering Paul

I’ve thought about this post even before my great friend Paul Decker died Tuesday. Truth be told, I’ve been thinking about it since Kitty – his wife, and the love of Paul’s life – sent me an email saying how ill Paul was.

I knew Paul only had one kidney, was down a gall bladder and had been a smoker far longer than he should’ve been. He’d had some health issues over the years. I immediately sent all the good thoughts and prayers I could their way. I offered to fly to Portland and help out for as long as needed, but Paul was too weak for visitors.

In my mind’s eye, this post was going to be a cohesive story about my longtime relationship with Paul, complete with a beginning, middle and sad, sad end. But as I sit here writing, hard as I try, I can’t seem to conjure up that kind of structure.

I’ve never been much for structure. Ask anyone I work with.

All that comes to me are mental snapshots, a highlight reel I know will fall short of giving a full picture of Paul because he was such an original. He was, as their friend Carla Clemen’s said in tribute, “one of God’s masterpieces.”

But incomplete as the memories may be, I’m going to share them. Because for me, any story involving Paul is inherently a great one.

Here are a few things I remember.

Paul spoke slowly. I’d often be in conversations with him where he’d pause to think about what he was going to say next, and then I’d start talking. And then he’d continue. Paul always thought before he spoke, making sure the words as well as the details conveyed exactly what he wanted. Not only was it refreshing, it was an education in how to listen as well as how to tell a story.

I met Paul at the first agency job I ever had, which was in the mailroom at Cunningham & Walsh. I remember they had built out a new studio and recording booth, and after work and on the occasional weekends Paul and I would go back there and do a radio show for our own amusement. I’d be talking about Bruce Springsteen (even then), and he’d be talking about baseball, asking me if I knew why Ted Williams was called “The Thumper.”

Since I mentioned Springsteen, I should also mention that at the time Paul couldn’t stand him. He thought he was a fake, a poser. I couldn’t convince him otherwise. I was never actually sure if he felt that way or if he was just having some fun with me because he knew I was such a hardcore fan. In fact, when Paul knew I couldn’t come to see Bruce in Portland last November, he decided to rub it in a little bit with this Facebook text:

The fact I was in the mailroom didn’t matter to Paul. He enjoyed people for who they were, not the position they held. And the fact this man, this writer, I admired so much treated me as an equal – which he continued to do after I became a copywriter – meant the world to me. Paul was the writer we all wanted to be. With a degree in English Literature from USC, he didn’t just make it up as he went. He knew what greatness looked and read like.

When Paul was going through his divorce, I was living in a two-bedroom apartment in Brentwood and my roommate had just moved out. Paul needed a place to stay, so I offered the extra bedroom and he moved in. I wish I could remember every conversation and story from back then, but sadly no.

I do remember at some point we decided we both could stand to be healthier, so every morning before work we’d walk about a mile and a half, stopping to have a donut at a place on San Vicente.

We saw the irony. We didn’t care.

One night during the time we were rooming together, I got into a horrendous car crash. I was thrown 20 ft. from the car, broke my arm and was knocked unconscious for over an hour. When I came to in Cedar’s ER, the person I had them call was Paul. He was the one who called my parents.

Paul gave me my first taste of real jazz. I remember one night he took me to the famous jazz club The Baked Potato in Studio City, where we saw the Dave Brubeck Trio. He explained – to the degree you can explain jazz – the music, the origin, the sound. He knew it all. At the end of the night, not only did I feel smarter, I felt more grown up.

While we’re on the subject of jazz, it should be noted that Paul and Kitty held their wedding at Harvelle’s, another legendary blues and jazz club in Santa Monica. I don’t ever remember seeing Paul happier than he was that day. If you know Kitty, you know there's no other way he could feel.

Always looking for ways to amuse himself, Paul came up with a game called Revenge. Basically it was where you’d challenge someone, and then you’d both run around in public with squirt guns filled with red water. Whoever shot the other person first won. That’s the explanation why I found myself chasing and being chased by Mal Sharpe all through Fox Hills Mall one night.

Just for the record, I lost. He snuck up behind me in front of a luggage store.

There was the legendary advertising brochure he did for Mammoth, Pervasive & Bland, a parody of large, dusty, non-creative, global shop that took pride in not using hackneyed phrases like “breakthrough” and “original”. The brochures became collector’s items in the biz because they only did a limited run. I’m proud to say I have one in mint condition.

Anyone who knew Paul well is also probably a customer of Modern Meats. I don’t think there’s anyone among us who didn’t look forward to the calendars, letters (suspiciously well written) and branded pens from Otto, president of Modern Meats. The note I wrote to Paul when I first found out he was ill was written with that very pen.

Here’s the truth of the matter: Paul isn’t gone when he dies. He’s gone when we die. It’d be impossible to have known him and not carry his spirit in your heart forever.

On the website where Kitty was posting updates about Paul, you have to log in with your I.D. and a password.

My password is ilovePaul.