Dom Deluise, RIP

 

For a while in the late seventies and early eighties, among certain people in a variety of places, Dom Deluise became a sort of shorthand for everything that was hilariously awful about the world. I have no idea how, but I do remember the place, a pool house, in a suburb, and three very drunk people making faces. Well, all that is far gone. I remember how excited we were when we found his apartment buzzer on lower Fifth Avenue. I remember thinking Philip had secretly put the name there. I remember when Tom Verlaine wrote a song with the line, ‘It’s yonky time,” thinking, does he know about Dom Deluise too? When Paul Newman in Fort Apache approaches the psychoapthic knife wielder by doing an odd dance, making faces and monkey noises, we wondered, how did Paul Newman find out about Dom Deluise? Everyone knew. It was a state of mind. We can rest in paucity or rest in peace. It’s Yonky time. It’s Dom Deluise. Or James Coco.