“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The cost of one heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.
We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.”
What tree-hugging, pinko is responsible for this diatribe? Paul Robeson, Bobby Kennedy, Malachy McCourt?
None of these esteemed gentlemen. Such words were uttered by the last great Republican president, Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe, Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Much attention has been given of late to Ike’s farewell warning against the influence of the military-industrial complex. The poor man must be twisting in his grave, for the US has become a military-industrial complex.
Cut education, cut social security, cut your granny’s bingo allowance, but don’t even dream of examining a defense budget! Might as well toss the baby Jesus out of the crib before you cut a buck from this sacrosanct military shopping list.
The waste, over-run budgets, out-of-date weaponry is astounding; the money galore seeping from the pentagon to the military suppliers, defense contractors and security firms is common knowledge and yet with a few honorable exceptions our political representatives adopt a hands off attitude.
What kind of madness is this? We don’t have enough money to rebuild roads, bridges, schools, or rail lines, but amazingly we spend more on our military than the countries with the next fifteen largest budgets combined.
Now I’m not talking about the wage or salary of the soldier or sailor, nor of the benefits they receive when they come home – they deserve everything they get and more. What is troubling is the mindset that defense budgets are holy cows to be held in awe but never touched.
Have you ever considered that the US has been at war – or on a war footing – ever since Eisenhower vacated the White House in 1960? We careen internationally from local vendetta to civil conflict often taking sides indiscriminately, usually without any sense of realpolitik.
It was so nice of us to go into Iraq, lose 4,400 US lives, waste billions borrowed from China, with the end result of handing the joint over to Iran. But even before we’re shown the door out of Baghdad, we’ve already shifted most of the troops to another un-winnable war supporting a narco-based, ultra-corrupt Afghani government.
Who is our next bogeyman, Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong-il, Bono? Hey, with oil running out, how about we resurrect the Fenian Brotherhood and invade Canada?
The real problem is that our political culture doesn’t allow us to discuss defense budgets. You have to hand it to these military-industrial dudes - they really run a tight game with bone-deep roots in both political parties, the media, and the national psyche; just as soon as anyone even mentions this madness, out come the flags, and the “hey, commie, why don’t you buzz off to Cuba” chants erupt.
The celebrity warrior culture does us no favors. Now I think General Petraeus is a sound man and an astute tactician; but even he would tell you that his “surge” worked because our former enemies, the Sunni Sons of Iraq, were added to the US employment rolls. Money well spent, I say, even if it never appeared in any budget – defense or otherwise.
His new surge in Afghanistan will work too. The Pashtun clans, AKA Taliban, will melt away – for the time being. Why not, they know we’ll eventually leave, might as well take a paid vacation courtesy of our Pakistani allies, and return when the heat dies down.
But then, General Petraeus is a soldier, unlike President Eisenhower who became a statesman. The general sees only the short-term. Ike looked down the road and saw what we could, and have, become – a nation at permanent war afraid to ask the reasons why.
Tuesday, 18 January 2011
Tuesday, 11 January 2011
Dr. Strangelove, what about you?
Have you ever been out to the Aran Islands - in particular, Inishmaan, one of the most beautiful, if strangest, places on earth? Should you ever suffer a bout of heart-scald, it’s a destination to consider.
I spent a couple of soothing days there once. Now granted, the weather was spectacular – the sun was splitting the rocks and there’s no shortage of boulders on Inishmaan. It did occur to me, however, that there must be long spells of rain and low cloud cover that could drive a man to drink, or worse.
After a day’s exploration capped by an hour or so sitting in Synge’s Seat awaiting inspiration, the auld heart was feeling a good deal better when a ferocious thirst hit me - always the first sign of recovery. And so, wouldn’t you know it, I made my way to the local pub – An Córa.
The scene within verged on the surreal. Six elderly men, in dark suits, white shirts and ties were murdering pints of Guinness while they watched the movie, Dr. Strangelove, on an antiquated 17” black & white television set.
They appeared to be having some difficulty comprehending Stanley Kubrick’s farce about a nutty American general ordering a nuclear strike on the Soviet Union, for they were firing questions at a young barman who was attempting to translate the zany dialogue into Irish for their benefit.
After some minutes of this inquisition, the barman lost both patience and cool, “Ah will yez ever shut up and figure it out yourselves. I’ve a pain in me arse explaining this thing to you!”
I often feel the same way when elucidating on the goings on down in Washington, DC to some foreigner; for instance, try getting your head around the recent debates, votes, threats, pay-offs and eventual begrudging ratification of the START Treaty with Russia.
Any kind of agreement that would lead to some form of inspection and verification of 23,000 stray nuclear weapons would, you might think, be a no-brainer, especially for those of us who grew up saying the rosary every night in hopes that the godless commies wouldn’t lay a big one on us in our sleep.
I happened to mention this paranoia while in the Soviet Union years back and got the instant reply, “Why do you think we drink so much vodka, you guys actually used nuclear weapons - twice.”
Actually, I used to feel a lot more secure when the comrades were ruling the roost over there – atheists are less likely to push the button since they don’t expect to be seeing Jesus later in the evening.
I much prefer them to Senators Kyl and DeMint who scare the hell out of me with their concern that signing nuclear treaties over Christmas is somehow sacrilegious. Then again, the prospect of Jim DeMint running for president would have been too farcial for even Kubrik to include in Dr. Strangelove. Such is the world we live in.
But it’s the horse-trading around this START deal that really boggles the mind! In order to secure ratification, poor President Obama, decent man that he is, had to promise to pony up 80 billion bucks for three new nuclear bomb factories and100 billion for new delivery systems. Add that to Michele’s Christmas present and no wonder the deficit is exploding.
I haven’t even mentioned the undisclosed but astronomical cost of a missile defense system to be placed around the perimeters of Russia, with a couple of first class shields around Arizona tossed in to ensure that Senators Kyl and McCain get a decent god-fearing night’s rest.
Apart from the fact that missile defense systems rarely work, do these nuclear warriors really think that the mafia now running Russia has the least interest in blowing up the “West” when all they really want to do is sell us vodka and bootleg Celtic Woman DVDs?
Sometimes I think we’d all be better off out on Inishmaan sculling pints and explaining Doctor Strangelove to them auld fellahs in the suits. It would be a damn sight simpler than figuring out what’s going on in Washington DC.
I spent a couple of soothing days there once. Now granted, the weather was spectacular – the sun was splitting the rocks and there’s no shortage of boulders on Inishmaan. It did occur to me, however, that there must be long spells of rain and low cloud cover that could drive a man to drink, or worse.
After a day’s exploration capped by an hour or so sitting in Synge’s Seat awaiting inspiration, the auld heart was feeling a good deal better when a ferocious thirst hit me - always the first sign of recovery. And so, wouldn’t you know it, I made my way to the local pub – An Córa.
The scene within verged on the surreal. Six elderly men, in dark suits, white shirts and ties were murdering pints of Guinness while they watched the movie, Dr. Strangelove, on an antiquated 17” black & white television set.
They appeared to be having some difficulty comprehending Stanley Kubrick’s farce about a nutty American general ordering a nuclear strike on the Soviet Union, for they were firing questions at a young barman who was attempting to translate the zany dialogue into Irish for their benefit.
After some minutes of this inquisition, the barman lost both patience and cool, “Ah will yez ever shut up and figure it out yourselves. I’ve a pain in me arse explaining this thing to you!”
I often feel the same way when elucidating on the goings on down in Washington, DC to some foreigner; for instance, try getting your head around the recent debates, votes, threats, pay-offs and eventual begrudging ratification of the START Treaty with Russia.
Any kind of agreement that would lead to some form of inspection and verification of 23,000 stray nuclear weapons would, you might think, be a no-brainer, especially for those of us who grew up saying the rosary every night in hopes that the godless commies wouldn’t lay a big one on us in our sleep.
I happened to mention this paranoia while in the Soviet Union years back and got the instant reply, “Why do you think we drink so much vodka, you guys actually used nuclear weapons - twice.”
Actually, I used to feel a lot more secure when the comrades were ruling the roost over there – atheists are less likely to push the button since they don’t expect to be seeing Jesus later in the evening.
I much prefer them to Senators Kyl and DeMint who scare the hell out of me with their concern that signing nuclear treaties over Christmas is somehow sacrilegious. Then again, the prospect of Jim DeMint running for president would have been too farcial for even Kubrik to include in Dr. Strangelove. Such is the world we live in.
But it’s the horse-trading around this START deal that really boggles the mind! In order to secure ratification, poor President Obama, decent man that he is, had to promise to pony up 80 billion bucks for three new nuclear bomb factories and100 billion for new delivery systems. Add that to Michele’s Christmas present and no wonder the deficit is exploding.
I haven’t even mentioned the undisclosed but astronomical cost of a missile defense system to be placed around the perimeters of Russia, with a couple of first class shields around Arizona tossed in to ensure that Senators Kyl and McCain get a decent god-fearing night’s rest.
Apart from the fact that missile defense systems rarely work, do these nuclear warriors really think that the mafia now running Russia has the least interest in blowing up the “West” when all they really want to do is sell us vodka and bootleg Celtic Woman DVDs?
Sometimes I think we’d all be better off out on Inishmaan sculling pints and explaining Doctor Strangelove to them auld fellahs in the suits. It would be a damn sight simpler than figuring out what’s going on in Washington DC.
Thursday, 6 January 2011
In Memory of Philo
He died 25 years ago on January 4th. It's still hard to believe. What a force! What a memory!
He was the most charismatic man I’ve ever met. Even before he “made it,” he cut a figure the length and breadth of Dublin. Phil Lynott was black, beautiful and sported a gurrier accent that could peel the skin off a turnip.
In the early days, Hendrix was his role model but I’m now reminded more of Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean. Loping down O’Connell Street like some psychedelic Pied Piper, he was usually trailed by a bunch of kids. His white teeth gleamed in a perpetual smile and he winked or bade hello to anyone who caught his eye.
I knew him by repute before I ever laid eyes on him - his small triumphs on the Dublin beat scene were trumpeted in Spotlight Magazine. His humiliations were even more public: Skid Row broke up to get rid of him, then reformed without him.
But nothing could stop Philo – within months he’d mastered the bass and formed Thin Lizzy. Soon thereafter, I met him.
On good weeks Pierce Turner and I would treat ourselves to a curry in the Luna Restaurant on O’Connell Street, a popular hangout for showband heads and rockers. To our delight we were given a table right behind Phil and Eric Bell.
Eric who? Oh, you know him well enough – you listen to guitarists ape his lines on Whiskey in the Jar damn near every time you enter an Irish bar.
I can still recall Phil in the Luna declaiming, “we’re goin’ nowhere in Ireland, man!” He was trying to convince a skeptical Eric that they should decamp for England. They did and the rest is history.
Have you any idea of what it was like to first hear Whiskey in the Jar explode out of car radios and cloth covered transistors? Roll over Amhrán na bhFiann, we’d just found our own national anthem – Eric’s overdriven guitar and Phil’s cathartic voice took that old tune to places we’d never dreamed of.
Even now when I play it on SiriusXM I’m struck by its sheer originality. It always raises my spirits and shoots me back to a time when rock & roll was fresh and adventurous and unaware of itself.
A couple of years later Eric quit the band onstage in an orgy of smashed amps and overdriven dreams. I guess he really hadn’t wanted to go to England.
It took two guitarists to replace him but Lizzy stormed on. Phil used his presence, voice and songwriting chops to propel them far beyond his Crumlin roots. Their concerts were riotous mind-bending affairs, pulsing with life and dicing with controlled chaos. You could almost touch the adrenaline – and it wasn’t always natural.
Those were the days when rockers lived on the jittery edge, forever on the road with a costly album to promote, and another to write and record before they’d even unpacked – everything speeded up in a crashing, burning, collapsing cycle. The highs so high - a pity they couldn’t be bottled. And the lows, well, you don’t want to go there.
Phil was so intense onstage it almost hurt to watch him. He was living his dream and he demanded 120% of those around him – 150% from himself. He knew the difference between poise and posture, and dare any of his band-mates indulge themselves. You could catch his curses and exhortations from the side of the stage – never from the front. Every molecule had to be directed at the audience – they’d paid good money, they deserved a show! It was the Dub working class ethic colliding head on with the rock & roll dream.
The band was not at its best the last time I saw him in NYC. New Wave was all the rage, Graham Parker opened and, to the critics - if not the fans - Lizzy seemed a trifle over-baked. Yet, back in the dressing room Phil was as ever polite, welcoming and delighted to meet someone who “knew him back when.”
It was like being hit with a hammer that Christmas Day in 1985 when the news of his collapse spread, but I didn’t shed a tear. By then I’d learned the hard way that you can’t trade tomorrow’s energy for tonight’s performance.
Still, whenever I hear Whiskey in the Jar, I sit back, close my eyes and relive the sheer exhilaration and Paddy pride of those days when Philo’s Dub accent exploded through car radios and cloth-covered transistors like a tricolor siren.
He was the most charismatic man I’ve ever met. Even before he “made it,” he cut a figure the length and breadth of Dublin. Phil Lynott was black, beautiful and sported a gurrier accent that could peel the skin off a turnip.
In the early days, Hendrix was his role model but I’m now reminded more of Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean. Loping down O’Connell Street like some psychedelic Pied Piper, he was usually trailed by a bunch of kids. His white teeth gleamed in a perpetual smile and he winked or bade hello to anyone who caught his eye.
I knew him by repute before I ever laid eyes on him - his small triumphs on the Dublin beat scene were trumpeted in Spotlight Magazine. His humiliations were even more public: Skid Row broke up to get rid of him, then reformed without him.
But nothing could stop Philo – within months he’d mastered the bass and formed Thin Lizzy. Soon thereafter, I met him.
On good weeks Pierce Turner and I would treat ourselves to a curry in the Luna Restaurant on O’Connell Street, a popular hangout for showband heads and rockers. To our delight we were given a table right behind Phil and Eric Bell.
Eric who? Oh, you know him well enough – you listen to guitarists ape his lines on Whiskey in the Jar damn near every time you enter an Irish bar.
I can still recall Phil in the Luna declaiming, “we’re goin’ nowhere in Ireland, man!” He was trying to convince a skeptical Eric that they should decamp for England. They did and the rest is history.
Have you any idea of what it was like to first hear Whiskey in the Jar explode out of car radios and cloth covered transistors? Roll over Amhrán na bhFiann, we’d just found our own national anthem – Eric’s overdriven guitar and Phil’s cathartic voice took that old tune to places we’d never dreamed of.
Even now when I play it on SiriusXM I’m struck by its sheer originality. It always raises my spirits and shoots me back to a time when rock & roll was fresh and adventurous and unaware of itself.
A couple of years later Eric quit the band onstage in an orgy of smashed amps and overdriven dreams. I guess he really hadn’t wanted to go to England.
It took two guitarists to replace him but Lizzy stormed on. Phil used his presence, voice and songwriting chops to propel them far beyond his Crumlin roots. Their concerts were riotous mind-bending affairs, pulsing with life and dicing with controlled chaos. You could almost touch the adrenaline – and it wasn’t always natural.
Those were the days when rockers lived on the jittery edge, forever on the road with a costly album to promote, and another to write and record before they’d even unpacked – everything speeded up in a crashing, burning, collapsing cycle. The highs so high - a pity they couldn’t be bottled. And the lows, well, you don’t want to go there.
Phil was so intense onstage it almost hurt to watch him. He was living his dream and he demanded 120% of those around him – 150% from himself. He knew the difference between poise and posture, and dare any of his band-mates indulge themselves. You could catch his curses and exhortations from the side of the stage – never from the front. Every molecule had to be directed at the audience – they’d paid good money, they deserved a show! It was the Dub working class ethic colliding head on with the rock & roll dream.
The band was not at its best the last time I saw him in NYC. New Wave was all the rage, Graham Parker opened and, to the critics - if not the fans - Lizzy seemed a trifle over-baked. Yet, back in the dressing room Phil was as ever polite, welcoming and delighted to meet someone who “knew him back when.”
It was like being hit with a hammer that Christmas Day in 1985 when the news of his collapse spread, but I didn’t shed a tear. By then I’d learned the hard way that you can’t trade tomorrow’s energy for tonight’s performance.
Still, whenever I hear Whiskey in the Jar, I sit back, close my eyes and relive the sheer exhilaration and Paddy pride of those days when Philo’s Dub accent exploded through car radios and cloth-covered transistors like a tricolor siren.
Wednesday, 5 January 2011
On Raglan Road
She was one of the most beautiful women in Dublin; fashion designers sought her out to wear their creations. She could often be seen strolling along Grafton Street or sitting in its more fashionable cafes attended by her many admirers. Intelligent, vivacious, a medical student, the world lay at her feet.
He was eighteen years her senior, a crotchety character at best, often enough a mean drunk. A small farmer he had turned his back on the stony grey soil of Cavan and walked to Dublin with a view to becoming a poet.
He fell hard for Hilda Moriarty the dark haired beauty who loved the poems but not the man. He became a nuisance, showing up uninvited and behaving badly.
She married a dashing young politician and broke the poet’s heart. But his unrequited passion spawned one of the great love songs – Raglan Road.
Patrick Kavanagh’s poetry has aged well; it often captures a lost rural Ireland tinged with violence and mystery. Like the poet himself, this landscape is unruly and unpredictable.
One can imagine the young woman being flattered by the poet’s attention while at the same time embarrassed, and even frightened, by the intensity of his passion. And yet, there is a gentility and acceptance of the price of love in these lines that also give us an idea of Hilda Moriarty’s dangerous allure.
On Raglan Road of an autumn day
I saw her first and knew
That her dark hair would weave a snare
That I might someday rue
I saw the danger and I passed
Along the enchanted way
And I said “Let grief be a falling leaf
At the dawning of the day.
Kavanagh is often compared unfavorably with Yeats – too parochial, not universal enough – but Yeats never fulfilled his ambition to write the lyrics of a great song. He once said, “Poetry should be as cold and passionate as the dawn.” And perhaps Yeats’ words are too finely calibrated, so that when a composer seeks to do them justice, the end result is off kilter, invariably mawkish and melodramatic.
Kavanagh’s lyrics are more pliable and natural as befits a man used to saving hay. To my ear, most interpretations of Raglan Road are over-sentimental, yet I’m always moved, no matter how limpid the rendering. The song is damn nigh indestructible; still the hint of bitterness that pervades Raglan Road is very rarely explored so the true potential of the piece usually goes unrealized.
The greatest version is by Luke Kelly of the Dubliners who delivers the song in a powerfully stark voice; as befits an acolyte of Ewan McColl who demanded that his students find the inner core of a song and then get out of the way of its message.
Kavanagh gave Kelly the words while both were drinking in The Bailey in 1966. He instructed the young singer to set the verses to the melody of Fáinne Geal an Lae (The Dawning of the Day).
Kelly was awestruck when he matched words and music to discover a masterpiece. It became his signature song, though it has been suggested that it eventually broke his heart for as the Dubliners’ popularity mushroomed their audiences preferred the bawdiness of Seven Drunken Nights to Luke’s sensitive interpretation of Raglan Road.
Tragedy followed Hilda too. Her husband - Fianna Fail minister, Donagh O’Malley - died at an early age leaving her with two children and never achieving the office of Taoiseach as many expected.
She outlived Kavanagh also but never forgot his unrequited unruly love. She sent a wreath of red roses to his funeral. Her beauty had faded by then. But she did not need a mirror to summon up her youth or the fragility of love and life; the poet had already done that for her.
On a quiet street where old ghosts meet
I see her walking now
And away from me so hurriedly
My reason must allow
That I had loved, not as I should
A creature made of clay,
When the angel woos the clay, he’ll lose
His wings at the dawn of day.
He was eighteen years her senior, a crotchety character at best, often enough a mean drunk. A small farmer he had turned his back on the stony grey soil of Cavan and walked to Dublin with a view to becoming a poet.
He fell hard for Hilda Moriarty the dark haired beauty who loved the poems but not the man. He became a nuisance, showing up uninvited and behaving badly.
She married a dashing young politician and broke the poet’s heart. But his unrequited passion spawned one of the great love songs – Raglan Road.
Patrick Kavanagh’s poetry has aged well; it often captures a lost rural Ireland tinged with violence and mystery. Like the poet himself, this landscape is unruly and unpredictable.
One can imagine the young woman being flattered by the poet’s attention while at the same time embarrassed, and even frightened, by the intensity of his passion. And yet, there is a gentility and acceptance of the price of love in these lines that also give us an idea of Hilda Moriarty’s dangerous allure.
On Raglan Road of an autumn day
I saw her first and knew
That her dark hair would weave a snare
That I might someday rue
I saw the danger and I passed
Along the enchanted way
And I said “Let grief be a falling leaf
At the dawning of the day.
Kavanagh is often compared unfavorably with Yeats – too parochial, not universal enough – but Yeats never fulfilled his ambition to write the lyrics of a great song. He once said, “Poetry should be as cold and passionate as the dawn.” And perhaps Yeats’ words are too finely calibrated, so that when a composer seeks to do them justice, the end result is off kilter, invariably mawkish and melodramatic.
Kavanagh’s lyrics are more pliable and natural as befits a man used to saving hay. To my ear, most interpretations of Raglan Road are over-sentimental, yet I’m always moved, no matter how limpid the rendering. The song is damn nigh indestructible; still the hint of bitterness that pervades Raglan Road is very rarely explored so the true potential of the piece usually goes unrealized.
The greatest version is by Luke Kelly of the Dubliners who delivers the song in a powerfully stark voice; as befits an acolyte of Ewan McColl who demanded that his students find the inner core of a song and then get out of the way of its message.
Kavanagh gave Kelly the words while both were drinking in The Bailey in 1966. He instructed the young singer to set the verses to the melody of Fáinne Geal an Lae (The Dawning of the Day).
Kelly was awestruck when he matched words and music to discover a masterpiece. It became his signature song, though it has been suggested that it eventually broke his heart for as the Dubliners’ popularity mushroomed their audiences preferred the bawdiness of Seven Drunken Nights to Luke’s sensitive interpretation of Raglan Road.
Tragedy followed Hilda too. Her husband - Fianna Fail minister, Donagh O’Malley - died at an early age leaving her with two children and never achieving the office of Taoiseach as many expected.
She outlived Kavanagh also but never forgot his unrequited unruly love. She sent a wreath of red roses to his funeral. Her beauty had faded by then. But she did not need a mirror to summon up her youth or the fragility of love and life; the poet had already done that for her.
On a quiet street where old ghosts meet
I see her walking now
And away from me so hurriedly
My reason must allow
That I had loved, not as I should
A creature made of clay,
When the angel woos the clay, he’ll lose
His wings at the dawn of day.
Thursday, 30 December 2010
New Year's Eve in Olde Tymes Square
Tickets on sale at www.black47.com until 6pm tonight and all day at Connolly’s, 121 W. 45th St., NYC 212-597-5126
What a long strange trip over the last decade or so. We began 2000 with Trouble in the Land – pretty prophetic when all is said and done, and this year we released Bankers and Gangsters - the title says it all.
For Mychal, Richie and the other cherished fans who departed back in 2001; for Strummer, Danno Laursen, Johnny Byrne, Big John Murphy and all those who worked with the band; for the many who have celebrated New Year’s Eve with us over the last 21 years; and, of course, for new friends who’ve come aboard in this decade, thanks to all of you for your support and friendship.
We only perform this song once a year and as far as I know it's only available on the Connolly’s Live in Times Square DVD. But tonight it’s just for you, so feel free to come along and video or audio tape it at midnight.
New Year’s Eve in Olde Tymes Square
It was always that way at the end of the year
We’d end up down in olde Tymes Square
Holdin’ each other while the pints flowed free
That was the way it always would be
But things fell apart one weird September
Before I knew it was the 31st of December
With my arms wrapped around your memory
That old crystal ball came crashin’ down on me
But you will never be forgot
Or ever left behind
And so I raise my glass to you
For the sake of Auld Lang Syne
And even though you’re far away
You’re always close to mind
Your memory still haunts me, dear
For the sake of Auld lang Syne
For Auld Lang Syne, my dear
For Auld Lang Syne
We’ll drink a cup of kindness yet
For the sake of Auld Lang Syne
Remember the night with the frost in your hair
And the sparks in your eyes when you told me you cared
And the cop on the horse laughed when he said
“Motel time, kids, why don’t yez save it for bed?”
But time and a river stopped dead in September
And I’m back in Connolly’s the 31st of December
Dancing with shadows and might have beens
With that old crystal ball crashin’ down on me
But you will never be forgot
Or ever left behind
And so I raise my glass to you
For the sake of Auld Lang Syne
And even though you’re far away
You’re always close to mind
Your memory still haunts me, dear
For the sake of Auld lang Syne
For Auld Lang Syne, my dear
For Auld Lang Syne
We’ll drink a cup of kindness yet
For the sake of Auld Lang Syne...
What a long strange trip over the last decade or so. We began 2000 with Trouble in the Land – pretty prophetic when all is said and done, and this year we released Bankers and Gangsters - the title says it all.
For Mychal, Richie and the other cherished fans who departed back in 2001; for Strummer, Danno Laursen, Johnny Byrne, Big John Murphy and all those who worked with the band; for the many who have celebrated New Year’s Eve with us over the last 21 years; and, of course, for new friends who’ve come aboard in this decade, thanks to all of you for your support and friendship.
We only perform this song once a year and as far as I know it's only available on the Connolly’s Live in Times Square DVD. But tonight it’s just for you, so feel free to come along and video or audio tape it at midnight.
New Year’s Eve in Olde Tymes Square
It was always that way at the end of the year
We’d end up down in olde Tymes Square
Holdin’ each other while the pints flowed free
That was the way it always would be
But things fell apart one weird September
Before I knew it was the 31st of December
With my arms wrapped around your memory
That old crystal ball came crashin’ down on me
But you will never be forgot
Or ever left behind
And so I raise my glass to you
For the sake of Auld Lang Syne
And even though you’re far away
You’re always close to mind
Your memory still haunts me, dear
For the sake of Auld lang Syne
For Auld Lang Syne, my dear
For Auld Lang Syne
We’ll drink a cup of kindness yet
For the sake of Auld Lang Syne
Remember the night with the frost in your hair
And the sparks in your eyes when you told me you cared
And the cop on the horse laughed when he said
“Motel time, kids, why don’t yez save it for bed?”
But time and a river stopped dead in September
And I’m back in Connolly’s the 31st of December
Dancing with shadows and might have beens
With that old crystal ball crashin’ down on me
But you will never be forgot
Or ever left behind
And so I raise my glass to you
For the sake of Auld Lang Syne
And even though you’re far away
You’re always close to mind
Your memory still haunts me, dear
For the sake of Auld lang Syne
For Auld Lang Syne, my dear
For Auld Lang Syne
We’ll drink a cup of kindness yet
For the sake of Auld Lang Syne...
Friday, 24 December 2010
Christmas and the Irish American Princess (IAP)
She was my first IAP (Irish-American Princess). Well the first that I lived with at any rate. Tara had somehow made her way down to the Lower East Side from the leafy, lace-curtain environs of Westchester, although she was anything but stuck up.
Back then I had a regular Sunday gig in the less than ritzy Archway up the Bronx and she fit in there like a fist in a glove. Of course, she was quite a looker so that didn’t hurt with the lovesick Paddies. She had beautiful grayish green eyes that would mist over in any kind of conflict or passion; there was much of both in our relationship. The boys said that she could twist me around her little finger. They were right, but oh that twisting could be so sweet.
Things came easy to Tara. She had succeeded at everything she’d turned her hand to. But she wished to become a successful singer, the rock that many have foundered upon. I must have seemed like a good step up the ladder; besides gigs in the Archway and John’s Flynn’s Village Pub, I regularly strutted my stuff at CBGB’s and Max’s Kansas City. It was to be a match made in purgatory for both of us. Whatever, as they say, I was in need of some stability and moved into her apartment on First Avenue.
I always “just missed” her parents on their visits to the city. That should have set the bells ringing but I guess when you’re in love… Actually, our first major disagreement was over my parents - when I announced I’d be spending Christmas with them in Wexford.
“Our first Christmas together?” She shuddered.
“Well, you can come too.” Although I broke into a cold sweat at the thought of telling the Mammy that we’d be bunking together in the ancestral homestead.
“I couldn’t desert my parents,” she countered as though I was sentencing her whole white-picketed clan to twenty out on Rykers.
“But what about my parents?” And on it went as lovers’ quarrels do until her eyes were so misty and beautiful I feared that her heart might indeed break
Well, I wrote my Mother a particularly tear-stained letter full of half-truths (God rest her soul, I suppose she knows the full story now). I didn’t dare telephone; I wasn’t man enough to bear two loads of womanly angst. In truth though, the part that really hurt was that I would miss the traditional Wexford boys’ night out on Christmas Eve. And so I extracted a promise from Tara that we’d at least tie on a decent substitute.
“No problem,” she said and was good to her word. She was fairly abstemious for those times but when called upon could drink like a fish with little ill effect. We bought a tree, decorated it, and strung flashing lights all around the apartment. I almost felt like Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life. Almost! For around 7pm I slipped on my black leather jacket, she dressed up to the nines and off we strutted up First Avenue to get well and truly shellacked.
God knows how many bars we hit, I certainly don’t; but I was feeling no pain by the time we reached Max’s Kansas City. Why Max’s on Christmas Eve? Well Tara liked to make the scene, besides I knew the doorman and got in free. I was also familiar with the bartender who slid many the shot of watered-down whiskey towards us. And then, through the shroud of smoky darkness, I heard the London accent.
“Roight!” The spiky-haired ghost in black leather wearily exclaimed.
The platinum blonde next to him droned on as junkies do.
“Roight.” Sid Vicious reiterated whenever a response was expected.
I casually whispered his name to Tara.
“Oh my God!” She shrieked as though Jesus had just hopped down off the cross and offered to buy a round.
Sid looked up blearily, whereupon Tara flashed him a smile that would have done justice to Marilyn Monroe on steroids.
“The blonde looks like a piece of all right,” I countered and winked at Nancy Spungen.
“From a bottle!” Tara sniffed just as Sid laboriously hauled himself off his stool and stumbled towards the restrooms; whereupon Ms. Spungen laid her head down on the counter for a wee snooze. We were still awaiting Sid’s return when Tara looked at her watch and gasped. “It’s two minutes to twelve.”
“Expecting to turn into a pumpkin?”
“No,” she moaned, “we won’t get into St. Patrick’s!”
“What for?”
“Midnight mass, of course. What do you think?”
Was she kidding - from Max’s to matins?
When we arrived at the church off Avenue A, I could tell it wasn’t exactly what Ms. Westchester had in mind. For one thing, the priests all wore dark shades and spoke Polish. Still, the place was packed and we reverently stood in the transept beside an ornate candelabra, wax dripping from its many branches.
Perhaps, it was the heat, though it could have been Max’s watery whiskey; for one moment I was swaying, the next I was writhing on the marble floor painfully disengaging myself from a myriad of hot waxy candles. There was immediate uproar with many Eastern European ladies screaming at me, and Tara, no doubt, wishing she was safely home in leafy suburbia.
When I awoke on Christmas morning much of her extensive wardrobe was laying atop me. She was modeling a matronly gray jacket and skirt, the hem inches below her knees, damn near a foot down from its usual height. I leaped from the bed and grabbed my Doc Martens, pink shirt, and black leather tie and jacket. Unlike my dearest, I had long before settled on an outfit appropriate for my first appearance in Westchester.
“You don’t look well, baby,” she laid a cool hand on my brow and cooed, “You’re just burning up.”
I did feel as though one of those monsters from Alien was ready to hop out of my stomach but I had much experience of that condition. “No, it’s okay. I want to do this for you.”
She hemmed and hawed before blurting out the truth, “It’s my mother…she wouldn’t like you.”
“What’s there not to like?”
“Well, your clothes, for one thing. I mean, are you serious?”
And with that, the fight fled from me. I could just picture the whole clan dressed in Kelly green singing Danny Boy around a turf fire - her auld one, no doubt, peering out through her lace curtains.
Tara took me in her arms whispered that I should go back to sleep, and hinted that on her return Santa might provide some x-rated delights. But I wasn’t that easily mollified and delivered one last parting shot as the door closed behind her, “So what am I supposed to do, have Christmas dinner in an Indian restaurant?”
Well, I didn’t fall back asleep and the hangover was of the galloping nature, gaining ground all evening. But the hunger was no joke either and when I eventually sauntered up First Avenue the only places open were of the Indian persuasion. A dusting of snow was coming down as I stormed into The Taj Mahal. The lone customer didn’t even bother to look up from his book; I sat there glaring at him, cursing all cruel-hearted IAPs and wishing I was home with my Mammy in Wexford.
The snow was swirling around First Avenue and I could hear White Christmas playing as I headed back to the apartment. I turned on the blinking Christmas lights and took a couple of fierce slugs of Jameson’s whiskey, turned the Clash up to eleven and rehearsed ever more vicious and vengeful ways of breaking up with Ms. Westchester.
She must have forgotten her keys for, at first, I didn’t hear her knock above Strummer’s bawling. I strode over to the door, more fired up than any Old Testament prophet. She stood there, face flushed from the cold, snow in her hair; she was expecting my fury and accepted it with grace. She smiled gently, her grayish green eyes misting over, and I barely heard her murmur, “I missed you so much.”
She reached up and held a sprig of mistletoe over my head and kissed me as if for the first time. Then she whispered, “Merry Christmas, baby.”
Back then I had a regular Sunday gig in the less than ritzy Archway up the Bronx and she fit in there like a fist in a glove. Of course, she was quite a looker so that didn’t hurt with the lovesick Paddies. She had beautiful grayish green eyes that would mist over in any kind of conflict or passion; there was much of both in our relationship. The boys said that she could twist me around her little finger. They were right, but oh that twisting could be so sweet.
Things came easy to Tara. She had succeeded at everything she’d turned her hand to. But she wished to become a successful singer, the rock that many have foundered upon. I must have seemed like a good step up the ladder; besides gigs in the Archway and John’s Flynn’s Village Pub, I regularly strutted my stuff at CBGB’s and Max’s Kansas City. It was to be a match made in purgatory for both of us. Whatever, as they say, I was in need of some stability and moved into her apartment on First Avenue.
I always “just missed” her parents on their visits to the city. That should have set the bells ringing but I guess when you’re in love… Actually, our first major disagreement was over my parents - when I announced I’d be spending Christmas with them in Wexford.
“Our first Christmas together?” She shuddered.
“Well, you can come too.” Although I broke into a cold sweat at the thought of telling the Mammy that we’d be bunking together in the ancestral homestead.
“I couldn’t desert my parents,” she countered as though I was sentencing her whole white-picketed clan to twenty out on Rykers.
“But what about my parents?” And on it went as lovers’ quarrels do until her eyes were so misty and beautiful I feared that her heart might indeed break
Well, I wrote my Mother a particularly tear-stained letter full of half-truths (God rest her soul, I suppose she knows the full story now). I didn’t dare telephone; I wasn’t man enough to bear two loads of womanly angst. In truth though, the part that really hurt was that I would miss the traditional Wexford boys’ night out on Christmas Eve. And so I extracted a promise from Tara that we’d at least tie on a decent substitute.
“No problem,” she said and was good to her word. She was fairly abstemious for those times but when called upon could drink like a fish with little ill effect. We bought a tree, decorated it, and strung flashing lights all around the apartment. I almost felt like Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life. Almost! For around 7pm I slipped on my black leather jacket, she dressed up to the nines and off we strutted up First Avenue to get well and truly shellacked.
God knows how many bars we hit, I certainly don’t; but I was feeling no pain by the time we reached Max’s Kansas City. Why Max’s on Christmas Eve? Well Tara liked to make the scene, besides I knew the doorman and got in free. I was also familiar with the bartender who slid many the shot of watered-down whiskey towards us. And then, through the shroud of smoky darkness, I heard the London accent.
“Roight!” The spiky-haired ghost in black leather wearily exclaimed.
The platinum blonde next to him droned on as junkies do.
“Roight.” Sid Vicious reiterated whenever a response was expected.
I casually whispered his name to Tara.
“Oh my God!” She shrieked as though Jesus had just hopped down off the cross and offered to buy a round.
Sid looked up blearily, whereupon Tara flashed him a smile that would have done justice to Marilyn Monroe on steroids.
“The blonde looks like a piece of all right,” I countered and winked at Nancy Spungen.
“From a bottle!” Tara sniffed just as Sid laboriously hauled himself off his stool and stumbled towards the restrooms; whereupon Ms. Spungen laid her head down on the counter for a wee snooze. We were still awaiting Sid’s return when Tara looked at her watch and gasped. “It’s two minutes to twelve.”
“Expecting to turn into a pumpkin?”
“No,” she moaned, “we won’t get into St. Patrick’s!”
“What for?”
“Midnight mass, of course. What do you think?”
Was she kidding - from Max’s to matins?
When we arrived at the church off Avenue A, I could tell it wasn’t exactly what Ms. Westchester had in mind. For one thing, the priests all wore dark shades and spoke Polish. Still, the place was packed and we reverently stood in the transept beside an ornate candelabra, wax dripping from its many branches.
Perhaps, it was the heat, though it could have been Max’s watery whiskey; for one moment I was swaying, the next I was writhing on the marble floor painfully disengaging myself from a myriad of hot waxy candles. There was immediate uproar with many Eastern European ladies screaming at me, and Tara, no doubt, wishing she was safely home in leafy suburbia.
When I awoke on Christmas morning much of her extensive wardrobe was laying atop me. She was modeling a matronly gray jacket and skirt, the hem inches below her knees, damn near a foot down from its usual height. I leaped from the bed and grabbed my Doc Martens, pink shirt, and black leather tie and jacket. Unlike my dearest, I had long before settled on an outfit appropriate for my first appearance in Westchester.
“You don’t look well, baby,” she laid a cool hand on my brow and cooed, “You’re just burning up.”
I did feel as though one of those monsters from Alien was ready to hop out of my stomach but I had much experience of that condition. “No, it’s okay. I want to do this for you.”
She hemmed and hawed before blurting out the truth, “It’s my mother…she wouldn’t like you.”
“What’s there not to like?”
“Well, your clothes, for one thing. I mean, are you serious?”
And with that, the fight fled from me. I could just picture the whole clan dressed in Kelly green singing Danny Boy around a turf fire - her auld one, no doubt, peering out through her lace curtains.
Tara took me in her arms whispered that I should go back to sleep, and hinted that on her return Santa might provide some x-rated delights. But I wasn’t that easily mollified and delivered one last parting shot as the door closed behind her, “So what am I supposed to do, have Christmas dinner in an Indian restaurant?”
Well, I didn’t fall back asleep and the hangover was of the galloping nature, gaining ground all evening. But the hunger was no joke either and when I eventually sauntered up First Avenue the only places open were of the Indian persuasion. A dusting of snow was coming down as I stormed into The Taj Mahal. The lone customer didn’t even bother to look up from his book; I sat there glaring at him, cursing all cruel-hearted IAPs and wishing I was home with my Mammy in Wexford.
The snow was swirling around First Avenue and I could hear White Christmas playing as I headed back to the apartment. I turned on the blinking Christmas lights and took a couple of fierce slugs of Jameson’s whiskey, turned the Clash up to eleven and rehearsed ever more vicious and vengeful ways of breaking up with Ms. Westchester.
She must have forgotten her keys for, at first, I didn’t hear her knock above Strummer’s bawling. I strode over to the door, more fired up than any Old Testament prophet. She stood there, face flushed from the cold, snow in her hair; she was expecting my fury and accepted it with grace. She smiled gently, her grayish green eyes misting over, and I barely heard her murmur, “I missed you so much.”
She reached up and held a sprig of mistletoe over my head and kissed me as if for the first time. Then she whispered, “Merry Christmas, baby.”
Tuesday, 21 December 2010
Dear President Obama
Dear President Obama,
Did you happen to get the gift I sent? I know it’s not very polite to ask and my mother, God rest her soul, is even now fuming up in heaven at my lack of manners.
It’s actually a double whammy – The Quiet American written by Graham Greene, along with a DVD of the movie inspired by the book.
I sent both because I think Michelle might like the movie; it contains “a bit of auld romance,” as they used to say in Ireland, coupled with an important message for you.
What with Wikileaks, though, I’m afraid you’ll discover that I sent the exact same present to President Bush some years back. However, some things never change.
I still think you’re doing a hell of a job on the home front - saving both the car industry and the financial system, along with making sure we can all get health insurance.
Now I don’t know whether you’ve ever read this column but I was very opposed to the war in Iraq. To tell you the truth, I’ve come to feel much the same way about the conflict in Afghanistan? I’d like to know if you honestly think that there’s a prayer of winning in this “graveyard of empire?”
What is “winning” anyway? Keeping in power a government that stole over a million votes in the last presidential elections - whose officials daily loot the treasury and are in cahoots with heroin dealers in the second most corrupt country in the world?
Many of us voted for you on strength of your commitment that troops would be drawn down in 2011 and although there are still murmurings on that score, we now find that for all intents and purposes this goalpost has been arbitrarily shifted to 2014.
Amazingly this ten-year war didn’t even raise a feather during the recent mid-term elections. Since Fox TV didn’t deem it worthy to be an issue politicians of both your party and the party of No followed suit. The tail continues to wag the dog!
And I’m more than aware that “it’s the economy, stupid!” But bad as things are, no one is getting killed over the economy. While in Afghanistan our young men and women are sacrificing their lives over meaningless piles of rubble. We are once again enmeshed in a hostile country fighting with few achievable goals.
I know you’re in a tricky situation and don’t want to be labeled “the man who lost Afghanistan.” Your upcoming presidential rivals would lambast you; but what’s a little shellacking when measured against the lives you could save?
Besides, we’ll be leaving Afghanistan as soon as it has drained us of our blood, money and idealism. Not to mention that instead of making the US safer, we’re actually doing the opposite by allowing our troops to become target practice in another civil war long after Qaeda has shifted its operations to more hospitable countries.
My final breaking point with this war came when Ahmed Zia Massoud, former Vice- President of Afghanistan and brother of Ahmed Shah Massoud, assassinated leader of the Northern Alliance, was discovered with $52 million in his possession while visiting the United Arab Emirates.
That says it all to me - there will be no Northern Alliance fighting the Taliban this time round, far better leave that unprofitable task to the innocent Yanks.
I wish you the best, Mr. President. I think you’re a decent man doing a credible job jump-starting a troubled US economy at a terrible time. But you’re dead wrong in pursuing this hopeless war in Afghanistan and those of us who railed against President Bush in Iraq make hypocrites of ourselves by turning a blind eye to your folly.
Graham Greene warned against this kind of involvement in The Quiet American. Take a read and, for God’s sake, leave a copy of the book or DVD for your successor so we can eventually break this unnecessary cycle of wars and return this country to its rightful position as the shining city on the hill.
Yours in protest, happy Christmas and all the best to you, the Missus and the girls!
Did you happen to get the gift I sent? I know it’s not very polite to ask and my mother, God rest her soul, is even now fuming up in heaven at my lack of manners.
It’s actually a double whammy – The Quiet American written by Graham Greene, along with a DVD of the movie inspired by the book.
I sent both because I think Michelle might like the movie; it contains “a bit of auld romance,” as they used to say in Ireland, coupled with an important message for you.
What with Wikileaks, though, I’m afraid you’ll discover that I sent the exact same present to President Bush some years back. However, some things never change.
I still think you’re doing a hell of a job on the home front - saving both the car industry and the financial system, along with making sure we can all get health insurance.
Now I don’t know whether you’ve ever read this column but I was very opposed to the war in Iraq. To tell you the truth, I’ve come to feel much the same way about the conflict in Afghanistan? I’d like to know if you honestly think that there’s a prayer of winning in this “graveyard of empire?”
What is “winning” anyway? Keeping in power a government that stole over a million votes in the last presidential elections - whose officials daily loot the treasury and are in cahoots with heroin dealers in the second most corrupt country in the world?
Many of us voted for you on strength of your commitment that troops would be drawn down in 2011 and although there are still murmurings on that score, we now find that for all intents and purposes this goalpost has been arbitrarily shifted to 2014.
Amazingly this ten-year war didn’t even raise a feather during the recent mid-term elections. Since Fox TV didn’t deem it worthy to be an issue politicians of both your party and the party of No followed suit. The tail continues to wag the dog!
And I’m more than aware that “it’s the economy, stupid!” But bad as things are, no one is getting killed over the economy. While in Afghanistan our young men and women are sacrificing their lives over meaningless piles of rubble. We are once again enmeshed in a hostile country fighting with few achievable goals.
I know you’re in a tricky situation and don’t want to be labeled “the man who lost Afghanistan.” Your upcoming presidential rivals would lambast you; but what’s a little shellacking when measured against the lives you could save?
Besides, we’ll be leaving Afghanistan as soon as it has drained us of our blood, money and idealism. Not to mention that instead of making the US safer, we’re actually doing the opposite by allowing our troops to become target practice in another civil war long after Qaeda has shifted its operations to more hospitable countries.
My final breaking point with this war came when Ahmed Zia Massoud, former Vice- President of Afghanistan and brother of Ahmed Shah Massoud, assassinated leader of the Northern Alliance, was discovered with $52 million in his possession while visiting the United Arab Emirates.
That says it all to me - there will be no Northern Alliance fighting the Taliban this time round, far better leave that unprofitable task to the innocent Yanks.
I wish you the best, Mr. President. I think you’re a decent man doing a credible job jump-starting a troubled US economy at a terrible time. But you’re dead wrong in pursuing this hopeless war in Afghanistan and those of us who railed against President Bush in Iraq make hypocrites of ourselves by turning a blind eye to your folly.
Graham Greene warned against this kind of involvement in The Quiet American. Take a read and, for God’s sake, leave a copy of the book or DVD for your successor so we can eventually break this unnecessary cycle of wars and return this country to its rightful position as the shining city on the hill.
Yours in protest, happy Christmas and all the best to you, the Missus and the girls!
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