Many people will be familiar with the work Susan Brustman did in our South Florida hospitality community via the company she founded, “Brustman Carrino Public Relations”. And for most her success would be awe inspiring enough for two lifetimes. I was one of the lucky ones that got to know her as a person to just hang out with and experience life’s horizons broaden.
There were many moments when chatting with her I found myself thinking, ‘what an extraordinary life this woman has lived and is living!’ The beautiful thing is that she had a sort of Hollywood meets the bohemian world of New York it was never her bragging. She was one of those rare people who was in the right place at the right time with more than enough moxie and joy to fit perfectly in with the exotic characters around her at various epochs. I knew her first through the culinary events. Of course. It made sense. We were complementary ingredients in the banquet of food and restaurant history of the region. I always loved her animated ways. Yet there was one particular time talking with her between shots at a session we were doing down in Key West with her team for some magazine when she remarked on a quote by the writer Jack Kerouac I had on the bottom of one of my menus. She casually said something like, “He was very handsome”. And I was like, “Whaaaaat?” It sounded like she was not going off of a photo from the back of the beat generation’s most famous face … but as in real life. She turned to me, looked at me more deeply and said, “Oh yeah. I was living in North Beach, (San Francisco) for a time and hanging out with a lot of those folks. I might have been around 19 years old. I only talked with Jack once or twice. (Jack!) I was around Cassady more”. (Neal Fucking Cassady?? Dean Fucking Moriarty??). That is when … like I wrote above, my horizon’s broadened. The photo session became secondary to me that afternoon than learning more about this being I was gifted to know. And I wanted more of it.
When you meet someone like Susan and if you are blessed enough to get to spend times with them never, as death reminds us, lose a day through being too ‘busy’. We will not know when we won’t see them again. Thankfully I will always have magical memories of her. And so will many of us. She had that power, that force, that joy.
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The link to the story of her life written by long time Miami Herald Cohen journalist is excellent and available here. I urge you to read it and share with anyone you think would enjoy it as I did. Susan personally selected Howard to be the one to write her obituary. Of course she did. She wanted to be sure even in leaving she’d leave us with more stories, more banquets.