OK, I’m all for actors getting drunk and rambling anti-authoritarian incoherency, but that does not mean that I want to hear about Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman getting busy all over the Lincoln Bedroom. I mean. Ew.
On the other hand, I was happy to see Danny DeVito referred to as louche. Sometime this morning, or this week anyway, I came across a reference to somebody as louche, and I thought the fellow in question was not louche at all. I think to be louche you have to be very nearly respectable. Not actually respectable, true, but I don’t think you could call, say, Flavor Flav louche. There has to be a sense that if the fellow cleaned himself up and stopped drinking (let’s say drinking, I think drunkenness is far more louche than being a cokehead) he could pass for respectable, if you weren’t looking closely.
Can women be louche? Was the late great Anita O’Day louche? What about Thelma Diamond?
You know, there was a time in my life when I wanted to be louche. I totally dug myself staggering through the streets at dawn, showing up for dinner parties already in the bag, having the barman (who would be an buddy from way back, of course) lay out seventeen shots of whiskey across the bar of the White Horse Tavern. I never wanted to be a fireman, but for a year or so I thought it would be romantic to be louche. I’m glad I never was; I haven’t the stomach for it.
chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.
If you’re ever near Berkeley, let me know and I’ll see about collecting a select club of investors to finance laying out seventeen shots of whisky across the bar of the White Horse (and provide assistance in the consumption thereof, should you need it).