George Kimball had a glass eye. Oddly enough, that wasn’t the first thing you noticed when he’d barrel through the door of The Bells of Hell. It was more that the general mirth and sense of anticipation rose a notch or two.
His journalist friends used to guffaw about the day in Fenway Park when an acquaintance asked him to keep an eye on his seat while he hit the bathroom. George popped out the glass eye, placed it on the bench, and said, “Sure.”
He passed away last week. Among the many caps George wore effortlessly was columnist for the Irish Times. He was as at ease in Dublin as in Lawrence, Kansas where he once ran for sheriff against a one-armed establishment figure under the slogan, "Lawrence needs a two-fisted sheriff with an eye on the future!"
I’m sure his spirit is drifting between a host of extinct bars today, including The Bells and The Lion’s Head in Greenwich Village, as well as sports emporiums the like of Fenway and Madison Square Garden.
For George liked to take the pulse of a city after he had sent in his reports to the Boston Herald or the Phoenix on the Red Sox and whatever boxing match he was covering. I don’t know about his baseball reporting but could he cover a fight.
He didn’t just report on the blows struck or the usual surface minutiae; he saw the world in all its hepped-up craziness reflected in the “sweet science.” There wasn’t a boxer of note, and many not of, that he wasn’t on familiar terms with. He appreciated them all – the losers as much the winners.
To George sports was life at hyper-speed, the way he often lived it. And all of the fighters, their managers, trainers, cut-men and gofers were worth ink because they were real, unaware and on the money, no matter how close to penury.
He understood the game of music too, the players, their problems and the pain they would face when they slid from the spotlight. He knew age would catch up with them too.
He loved Paul Simon’s song, The Boxer, for it nailed the New York City of the late 60’s that he loved. He appreciated that the writer and song would mature even as the city shed much of its seedy glamour.
Life, sports, music, books, broads, booze and the big city – they were all one big exciting cocktail to George and his circle.
It was into this milieu that I stumbled back in the 70’s. It was centered on the Lion’s Head with outposts in the Bells, Jimmy Days, and a couple of uptown joints.
George was often down from Boston to cover the Sox or a fight. There were Hamills and McCourts too and an array of other colorful characters. Almost to a man – and the occasional woman – they cast a cold eye on the Vietnam War.
They were inspiring: their casual disdain for Nixon and his ilk was far more devastating than the ideological vitriol abroad in the East Village.
In time they shook their heads about the folly of Iraq. Had the clowns learned nothing? Waterboarding was beneath contempt, for to these hardboiled romantics America was the perennial good guy and didn’t engage in torture.
Bars close, times change and I lost sight of George. Then a couple of years back I ran into him – you guessed it, in a bar though he had quit the sauce. There was no distance; it was as if we’d been carousing the night before at the Bells.
I just wish I’d spent more time with him; there were so much I wanted to know about legends like Stanley Ketchel and Billy Conn, and friends of his like Muhammad Ali and Hunter Thompson.
But more than anything, I had a couple of questions about life. He probably didn’t have the answers, but the time spent in his company would have been, as ever, illuminating, irreverent and unforgettable – just like the man himself.
Saturday, 23 July 2011
Wednesday, 13 July 2011
Social Security Four Years Later
Four years ago this month I wrote a column concerning Social Security and its essential place in the fabric of US society.
Remember those heady days of July 2007. The Dow had just closed above 14,000, house prices made your head spin, President George Bush was still paying for the Iraq war on the Chinese credit card, and those recently converted deficit hawks, Messrs. Boehner and McConnell, were more interested in slashing their golf handicaps than federal budgets.
Salad days, indeed! And yet this pain-in-the-butt columnist was warning that unless we bump up Social Security benefits “we’ll eventually have an army of senior citizens living on cat food.”
I likened the retiree’s economic security to a four-legged stool made up of family home, pensions, savings and Social Security. Let’s check the wobble factor after the last three years of financial turmoil?
Well, home prices have tanked, many are “underwater,” meaning that more is owed than the property is currently worth.
Pensions? Becoming as obsolete as the typewriter, even the once sacrosanct civil service retirement system is under attack.
Savings? A recent poll suggested that over a third of Americans don’t even have a hundred bucks stashed away for retirement. No wonder Powerball is so popular.
One silver lining: after sinking below 7000 in 2009, the Dow Jones Index is back up in the 12,000’s. Small wonder since profits are at record highs for the 30 big Dow companies, in no small part due to reduced costs from firing employees.
And for those lucky enough to have a 401(k), the average balance at retirement is $98,000 – hardly a king’s ransom if it has to stretch for twenty or more years, especially if it’s dependent on yo-yoing stock prices.
So, where does that leave your regular Joe or Jane contemplating retirement? You guessed it – depending big time on the old SS!
Back when FDR proposed Social Security he was accused by Republicans of ushering in socialism. Call it what you like – you think there’s a reason he’s one of the most revered presidents?
Apart from the monthly stipend paid to qualified participants, Social Security bestows a measure of dignity upon those who have toiled for a lifetime, raised families and have little to show for it. Instead of cutting or curtailing its benefits we need to safeguard and strengthen them.
There is nothing inherently wrong with the fiscal health of Social Security. From 1937 through 2009 it took in $13.8 trillion in payroll taxes and paid out $11.3 trillion in benefits. The balance was “borrowed” to fund other programs. Because of the recent recession the system is now taking in less than it is paying out. Should this situation continue Social Security is likely to go bust sometime around 2037.
In other words we’ve torn up the social contract honored by previous generations. We’ve stopped paying our way and to hell with those coming after.
And yet for mere pennies extra a week we could make Social Security fiscally sound again. Is that so far beyond us?
And for an extra couple of bucks a month we could beef up the system so that seniors might enjoy the more dignified, and less worrisome, lifestyle enjoyed by their peers in other developed nations.
I know! Messrs. Boehner and McConnell say we can’t afford to raise taxes in a time of recession – businesses will be less likely to take on new employees. Tell that to the Fortune 500 – many so awash in cash they’re even buying back their own stock and still not hiring.
Medicare is already being threatened by the Ryan voucher proposal that invites recipients to fend for themselves with private health insurance and medical providers. Moan all you like about big government, try going mano a mano with big business!
There are many reasons for the current deficits – a fee for service medical system that encourages overspending, an ongoing war mentality that leads to bulging defense budgets, and a refusal to pay as we go for the services we demand.
Social Security need not be one of those problems, if we pony up and do the right thing. In fact, for senior citizens it may well be the only solution.
Remember those heady days of July 2007. The Dow had just closed above 14,000, house prices made your head spin, President George Bush was still paying for the Iraq war on the Chinese credit card, and those recently converted deficit hawks, Messrs. Boehner and McConnell, were more interested in slashing their golf handicaps than federal budgets.
Salad days, indeed! And yet this pain-in-the-butt columnist was warning that unless we bump up Social Security benefits “we’ll eventually have an army of senior citizens living on cat food.”
I likened the retiree’s economic security to a four-legged stool made up of family home, pensions, savings and Social Security. Let’s check the wobble factor after the last three years of financial turmoil?
Well, home prices have tanked, many are “underwater,” meaning that more is owed than the property is currently worth.
Pensions? Becoming as obsolete as the typewriter, even the once sacrosanct civil service retirement system is under attack.
Savings? A recent poll suggested that over a third of Americans don’t even have a hundred bucks stashed away for retirement. No wonder Powerball is so popular.
One silver lining: after sinking below 7000 in 2009, the Dow Jones Index is back up in the 12,000’s. Small wonder since profits are at record highs for the 30 big Dow companies, in no small part due to reduced costs from firing employees.
And for those lucky enough to have a 401(k), the average balance at retirement is $98,000 – hardly a king’s ransom if it has to stretch for twenty or more years, especially if it’s dependent on yo-yoing stock prices.
So, where does that leave your regular Joe or Jane contemplating retirement? You guessed it – depending big time on the old SS!
Back when FDR proposed Social Security he was accused by Republicans of ushering in socialism. Call it what you like – you think there’s a reason he’s one of the most revered presidents?
Apart from the monthly stipend paid to qualified participants, Social Security bestows a measure of dignity upon those who have toiled for a lifetime, raised families and have little to show for it. Instead of cutting or curtailing its benefits we need to safeguard and strengthen them.
There is nothing inherently wrong with the fiscal health of Social Security. From 1937 through 2009 it took in $13.8 trillion in payroll taxes and paid out $11.3 trillion in benefits. The balance was “borrowed” to fund other programs. Because of the recent recession the system is now taking in less than it is paying out. Should this situation continue Social Security is likely to go bust sometime around 2037.
In other words we’ve torn up the social contract honored by previous generations. We’ve stopped paying our way and to hell with those coming after.
And yet for mere pennies extra a week we could make Social Security fiscally sound again. Is that so far beyond us?
And for an extra couple of bucks a month we could beef up the system so that seniors might enjoy the more dignified, and less worrisome, lifestyle enjoyed by their peers in other developed nations.
I know! Messrs. Boehner and McConnell say we can’t afford to raise taxes in a time of recession – businesses will be less likely to take on new employees. Tell that to the Fortune 500 – many so awash in cash they’re even buying back their own stock and still not hiring.
Medicare is already being threatened by the Ryan voucher proposal that invites recipients to fend for themselves with private health insurance and medical providers. Moan all you like about big government, try going mano a mano with big business!
There are many reasons for the current deficits – a fee for service medical system that encourages overspending, an ongoing war mentality that leads to bulging defense budgets, and a refusal to pay as we go for the services we demand.
Social Security need not be one of those problems, if we pony up and do the right thing. In fact, for senior citizens it may well be the only solution.
Wednesday, 6 July 2011
The Big Man
So the Big Man is gone. Headed off down Thunder Road.
We’ll never see the like of Clarence Clemons again, that’s for certain. He did leave the stage on cue, however, for the scene that he sprung from has just about run its course.
Clarence was the archetypal rock & roll tenor sax player, raised on King Curtis and roadhouse gigs. But he’ll be remembered mainly for his work with Bruce Springsteen.
They both emerged in the late 60’s down the Jersey Shore. What is it about those “dusty little seaside towns” and music?
I’ve played many of them from Maryland up to Maine. Cheap little bars, the jukebox pounding, hot chicks, cold beer and pedal to the metal bands. Asbury Park had more than its share including the Wonder Bar, the Student Prince and the big league Stone Pony.
I once heard Bruce describe their first meeting on a windy, rainy Boardwalk night. He saw a giant black man approaching and discreetly stepped inside the doorway of a boarded up arcade. The figure stopped outside, looked in, reached out his hand and then:
“Sparks flew on E Street when the boy prophets walked it handsome and hot.” Bruce sang, the band hit the downbeat and we all tumbled off into the jumbled magic of The E Street Shuffle.
The E Street Band itself could always spin on whatever dime Springsteen’s genius demanded. There was an empathy akin to love between Clarence and the Boss onstage and the sax player could effortlessly turn the singer’s yearnings into soaring solos that took the songs way beyond where mere words go.
That kind of playing doesn’t spring from rehearsal rooms. It comes from long nights balancing riffs and aspirations with the demands of an audience – something damn nigh impossible for a band nowadays. Gigs are scarcer and musicians don’t have the luxury to stretch and learn to trust each other in a business far more concerned with celebrity than content or accomplishment.
Many of the better versions of Springsteen’s songs never made it to the studio. The poetry of Thunder Road was sacrificed to make Born To Run a cohesive, majestic rock & roll album. Take a listen - Bruce can barely fit the words into the speeded-up tempo. Like many others, I’ll always treasure being there at the birth of this incredible song when he used to moan it above an aching solitary piano,
“The screen door slams
Angelina's dress waves
Like a vision she dances across the porch
As the radio plays…”
Yeah, back then Mary was called Angelina. But who cares? Writers change their minds, great bands make that possible, and in the final searing sax solo you became one with the less than lovely woman fretting about not being” that young anymore.”
Rock & Roll has always been a combustible fusion of black rhythms and white working class sensibilities; rock music is its milquetoast middle-class imitation. Kids now attend Rock School. Many of them become great players – they learn all the moves that will serve them well on American Idol.
That’s what rock has become, but the roll has always been about rebelling against parents and the desolation of dead end jobs. It can’t be taught, it’s learned and earned on long nights in sleazy bars from players way cooler than you.
I used to watch Clarence empathizing with Springsteen’s claustrophobic spoken intro to the Animals' It's My Life. It reeked of alienation from his father. Rock & Roll was Bruce’s only escape from their stifling working class home. The Big Man held the door open and helped make the dream possible.
I never met Clarence Anicholas Clemons but one night at the Bottom Line a French poet was so moved at the end of Incident On 57th Street he was unable to stop hollering despite Bruce’s appeal for quiet. Finally the Big Man reached out to Jacques and silenced him with a smile. He understood that music and madness are inextricably linked and on a good night rock & roll makes saints of us all.
So long Big Man. The scene may be coming to an end but there’s always a gig for you somewhere down Thunder Road.
We’ll never see the like of Clarence Clemons again, that’s for certain. He did leave the stage on cue, however, for the scene that he sprung from has just about run its course.
Clarence was the archetypal rock & roll tenor sax player, raised on King Curtis and roadhouse gigs. But he’ll be remembered mainly for his work with Bruce Springsteen.
They both emerged in the late 60’s down the Jersey Shore. What is it about those “dusty little seaside towns” and music?
I’ve played many of them from Maryland up to Maine. Cheap little bars, the jukebox pounding, hot chicks, cold beer and pedal to the metal bands. Asbury Park had more than its share including the Wonder Bar, the Student Prince and the big league Stone Pony.
I once heard Bruce describe their first meeting on a windy, rainy Boardwalk night. He saw a giant black man approaching and discreetly stepped inside the doorway of a boarded up arcade. The figure stopped outside, looked in, reached out his hand and then:
“Sparks flew on E Street when the boy prophets walked it handsome and hot.” Bruce sang, the band hit the downbeat and we all tumbled off into the jumbled magic of The E Street Shuffle.
The E Street Band itself could always spin on whatever dime Springsteen’s genius demanded. There was an empathy akin to love between Clarence and the Boss onstage and the sax player could effortlessly turn the singer’s yearnings into soaring solos that took the songs way beyond where mere words go.
That kind of playing doesn’t spring from rehearsal rooms. It comes from long nights balancing riffs and aspirations with the demands of an audience – something damn nigh impossible for a band nowadays. Gigs are scarcer and musicians don’t have the luxury to stretch and learn to trust each other in a business far more concerned with celebrity than content or accomplishment.
Many of the better versions of Springsteen’s songs never made it to the studio. The poetry of Thunder Road was sacrificed to make Born To Run a cohesive, majestic rock & roll album. Take a listen - Bruce can barely fit the words into the speeded-up tempo. Like many others, I’ll always treasure being there at the birth of this incredible song when he used to moan it above an aching solitary piano,
“The screen door slams
Angelina's dress waves
Like a vision she dances across the porch
As the radio plays…”
Yeah, back then Mary was called Angelina. But who cares? Writers change their minds, great bands make that possible, and in the final searing sax solo you became one with the less than lovely woman fretting about not being” that young anymore.”
Rock & Roll has always been a combustible fusion of black rhythms and white working class sensibilities; rock music is its milquetoast middle-class imitation. Kids now attend Rock School. Many of them become great players – they learn all the moves that will serve them well on American Idol.
That’s what rock has become, but the roll has always been about rebelling against parents and the desolation of dead end jobs. It can’t be taught, it’s learned and earned on long nights in sleazy bars from players way cooler than you.
I used to watch Clarence empathizing with Springsteen’s claustrophobic spoken intro to the Animals' It's My Life. It reeked of alienation from his father. Rock & Roll was Bruce’s only escape from their stifling working class home. The Big Man held the door open and helped make the dream possible.
I never met Clarence Anicholas Clemons but one night at the Bottom Line a French poet was so moved at the end of Incident On 57th Street he was unable to stop hollering despite Bruce’s appeal for quiet. Finally the Big Man reached out to Jacques and silenced him with a smile. He understood that music and madness are inextricably linked and on a good night rock & roll makes saints of us all.
So long Big Man. The scene may be coming to an end but there’s always a gig for you somewhere down Thunder Road.
Tuesday, 21 June 2011
Summer in the City
“Hot town summer in the city
Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty
Been down, isn’t it a pity
Doesn’t seem to be a shadow in the city…”
C’mon, Lovin’ Spoonful, what’s a little sweat between friends? Didn’t you know that when the fabulous leave for the traffic-jammed Hamptons New York becomes a playground for the rest of us?
You don’t need deep pockets either. The subway is safe and efficient – well, compared to other eras. It runs 24/7 and is a veritable living theatre chockfull of character actors who would put Jack Nicholson to shame.
The same goes for walking. And there’s so much to see. A smorgasbord of buildings erected over the last four centuries preen and lean against each other without even a nod to conformity.
On a good day even Mr. Trump’s monstrosities have a certain buffoonish charm. You’d have to wonder, though, if The Donald has ever even noticed the Chrysler or Woolworth in their stately elegance?
After scores of visits to the Metropolitan Museum I still marvel that I’m allowed stand within sniffing distance of Van Gogh’s Starry Night; however, if the sheer profusion of masterpieces becomes too much for you, then surrender yourself to the moody serenity of a Vermeer at the more negotiable Frick Museum.
Want to wear the kids out and still feel good when you hit the saloons unencumbered later? The Museum of Natural History is your man. Go early and saturate them with dinosaurs, pharaohs, whales and fossils, they’ll be crying out for a long peaceful evening of Facebook and video games back at the hotel.
But New York is so much more than Manhattan. Take a walk down the West Side to Battery Park and hop aboard the Staten Island Ferry, doesn’t cost a dime.
Even on the most blistering of days it’s cool out in the harbor where you can still sense what it must have been like to arrive on an emigrant ship. You’ll see the skyline and bridges from a whole different angle while the Statue of Liberty will only gain in the grandeur of its scale and message.
When you land at St. George board the train to Tottenville but get off at a couple of the leafy small towns. After an hour or two of a ramble you’ll understand why so many people from Aaron Burr to Keith Richard made their home in this least lauded of boroughs.
Are beaches your thing? Then like Duke Ellington take the A train to the Republic of Rockaway. They do things their own way out on this wave pounded peninsula and my one fear is that someday they’ll pack up their splendor and secede from the city. Cadge an invitation to Breezy Point, the gated Irish Riviera at the west end. Ask for my brother, chances are you’ll find him holding court at the Blarney Castle.
You want music? The axis has shifted from Manhattan to Brooklyn. Try the Knitting Factory in Williamsburg – this unique club prides itself on showcasing musicians from all continents.
And for an authentic Irish-American saloon, where Jimmy Cagney trumps Colin Farrell and Notre Dame football is preferred to its Kerry equivalent, seek out Rocky Sullivan’s in Red Hook. Seanchai and The Unity Squad pump their fists for culture in the back room every Saturday night.
Do you have a yen for flowers, exotic and otherwise? Then get thee to the only borough on the mainland, The Bronx! The Botanical Gardens are a thing of rare beauty and if you want to go nose to nose with a gorilla the magnificent zoo is close by.
You don’t have tickets for the Yankees game? Go on up anyway and ask if they’ve got any last minute deals. Chances are you’ll get great seats and at a discount too.
Don’t forget Upper Manhattan – it’s a different country. Stroll through the wildness of Inwood Hill Park before hoofing it down to The Cloisters. You’ll fancy you’ve stepped right back into medieval Europe.
That’s New York City - all you need is a subway card, a sense of adventure and a sensible pair of shoes. See you on the town.
Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty
Been down, isn’t it a pity
Doesn’t seem to be a shadow in the city…”
C’mon, Lovin’ Spoonful, what’s a little sweat between friends? Didn’t you know that when the fabulous leave for the traffic-jammed Hamptons New York becomes a playground for the rest of us?
You don’t need deep pockets either. The subway is safe and efficient – well, compared to other eras. It runs 24/7 and is a veritable living theatre chockfull of character actors who would put Jack Nicholson to shame.
The same goes for walking. And there’s so much to see. A smorgasbord of buildings erected over the last four centuries preen and lean against each other without even a nod to conformity.
On a good day even Mr. Trump’s monstrosities have a certain buffoonish charm. You’d have to wonder, though, if The Donald has ever even noticed the Chrysler or Woolworth in their stately elegance?
After scores of visits to the Metropolitan Museum I still marvel that I’m allowed stand within sniffing distance of Van Gogh’s Starry Night; however, if the sheer profusion of masterpieces becomes too much for you, then surrender yourself to the moody serenity of a Vermeer at the more negotiable Frick Museum.
Want to wear the kids out and still feel good when you hit the saloons unencumbered later? The Museum of Natural History is your man. Go early and saturate them with dinosaurs, pharaohs, whales and fossils, they’ll be crying out for a long peaceful evening of Facebook and video games back at the hotel.
But New York is so much more than Manhattan. Take a walk down the West Side to Battery Park and hop aboard the Staten Island Ferry, doesn’t cost a dime.
Even on the most blistering of days it’s cool out in the harbor where you can still sense what it must have been like to arrive on an emigrant ship. You’ll see the skyline and bridges from a whole different angle while the Statue of Liberty will only gain in the grandeur of its scale and message.
When you land at St. George board the train to Tottenville but get off at a couple of the leafy small towns. After an hour or two of a ramble you’ll understand why so many people from Aaron Burr to Keith Richard made their home in this least lauded of boroughs.
Are beaches your thing? Then like Duke Ellington take the A train to the Republic of Rockaway. They do things their own way out on this wave pounded peninsula and my one fear is that someday they’ll pack up their splendor and secede from the city. Cadge an invitation to Breezy Point, the gated Irish Riviera at the west end. Ask for my brother, chances are you’ll find him holding court at the Blarney Castle.
You want music? The axis has shifted from Manhattan to Brooklyn. Try the Knitting Factory in Williamsburg – this unique club prides itself on showcasing musicians from all continents.
And for an authentic Irish-American saloon, where Jimmy Cagney trumps Colin Farrell and Notre Dame football is preferred to its Kerry equivalent, seek out Rocky Sullivan’s in Red Hook. Seanchai and The Unity Squad pump their fists for culture in the back room every Saturday night.
Do you have a yen for flowers, exotic and otherwise? Then get thee to the only borough on the mainland, The Bronx! The Botanical Gardens are a thing of rare beauty and if you want to go nose to nose with a gorilla the magnificent zoo is close by.
You don’t have tickets for the Yankees game? Go on up anyway and ask if they’ve got any last minute deals. Chances are you’ll get great seats and at a discount too.
Don’t forget Upper Manhattan – it’s a different country. Stroll through the wildness of Inwood Hill Park before hoofing it down to The Cloisters. You’ll fancy you’ve stepped right back into medieval Europe.
That’s New York City - all you need is a subway card, a sense of adventure and a sensible pair of shoes. See you on the town.
Wednesday, 15 June 2011
Who'll Be The Last One To Die?
Who’ll be the last one to die?
How long now since John Kerry, a decorated hero, asked that question in relation to the Vietnam War as it lurched to its unseemly conclusion?
Despite the pundits, the military brass and the politicians who enable our support of a civil war in Afghanistan, the die is cast there too. We won’t be leaving tomorrow but the countdown has begun.
So who’ll be the last American to give up his or her life for another country far outside our sphere of influence and with little or no strategic importance? The place was even too forbidding for Osama Bin Laden; far better set up house for his three wives within spitting distance of the US financed Pakistan Army.
Luckily for us, that unremitting hater of all things American, Muqtada al-Sadr, leader of the Mahdi Army, is refusing to let our major thinkers keep us indefinitely enmeshed in Iraq, a country we should never have invaded in the first place.
Pity there’s not an Afghani Muqtada. But that’s hardly on the cards, everyone’s too much on the make, including the corrupt Karzai government and various Taliban allies who offer protection so that roads can be built and those oh-so elusive hearts won.
In the end money too will drive our exit strategy - or rather the lack of it. There was a time we could write blank checks and impose our will on the world; but according to Congressman Paul Ryan we can no longer even afford to cover our seniors’ medical care or the pittance we call social security.
In the meantime, however, we can still pour over a hundred billion a year into Afghanistan and that’s just the military cost. Who even wants to think of the money and lives that have been squandered in Iraq?
Oh, by the way, for those of you who were opposed to bailing out our financial institutions, you ever hear of the Kabul Bank? Well it’s hitting some hard times right now - almost a billion bucks was given out in loans to politically connected shareholders including the president’s brother, Hamid Karzai, already suspected of having a hand in the booming opium trade. It would appear that most of those loans lacked collateral and even documentation.
The government of Afghanistan barely takes in revenues of a billion a year, so it’s highly unlikely they’ll be ponying up; and since we can’t continue propping up the world’s 2nd most corrupt government if their financial system collapses, guess where the buck stops?
And that’s not even taking into account the human dimension. Because we’re fighting a wily resourceful enemy who can melt into the population we continue to kill innocent civilians, often women and children. Even our paid pawn, President Karzai, recently warned that such conduct was unbecoming – of course, he had his hand out at the same time.
So why stay? Bin Laden’s dead and Qaeda prefers beachfront property in Yemen and Somalia.
Many of us came down heavily on President Bush for invading Iraq but we continue to turn a blind eye to President Obama’s endless war in Afghanistan. After all, those horrible Republicans and Tea Partiers would flay him alive if he cut and ran, right?
Perhaps, but when the American Embassy was blown up in Beirut, President Reagan moved the marines out of Lebanon posthaste. No one called him a quitter.
Nor did President Clinton allow us to become enmeshed in Somalia after Black Hawk Down. Those were different days, however, before the National Security cabal committed us to permanent war.
And have all the lives lost and money wasted made us the least bit safer? I think not. Blowing up God-crazed peasants half way around the world does little but line the pockets of corrupt foreign governments and our own military industrial complex.
Together they’ll tease out this endgame until the ultimate question remains - Who’ll be the last one to die?
How long now since John Kerry, a decorated hero, asked that question in relation to the Vietnam War as it lurched to its unseemly conclusion?
Despite the pundits, the military brass and the politicians who enable our support of a civil war in Afghanistan, the die is cast there too. We won’t be leaving tomorrow but the countdown has begun.
So who’ll be the last American to give up his or her life for another country far outside our sphere of influence and with little or no strategic importance? The place was even too forbidding for Osama Bin Laden; far better set up house for his three wives within spitting distance of the US financed Pakistan Army.
Luckily for us, that unremitting hater of all things American, Muqtada al-Sadr, leader of the Mahdi Army, is refusing to let our major thinkers keep us indefinitely enmeshed in Iraq, a country we should never have invaded in the first place.
Pity there’s not an Afghani Muqtada. But that’s hardly on the cards, everyone’s too much on the make, including the corrupt Karzai government and various Taliban allies who offer protection so that roads can be built and those oh-so elusive hearts won.
In the end money too will drive our exit strategy - or rather the lack of it. There was a time we could write blank checks and impose our will on the world; but according to Congressman Paul Ryan we can no longer even afford to cover our seniors’ medical care or the pittance we call social security.
In the meantime, however, we can still pour over a hundred billion a year into Afghanistan and that’s just the military cost. Who even wants to think of the money and lives that have been squandered in Iraq?
Oh, by the way, for those of you who were opposed to bailing out our financial institutions, you ever hear of the Kabul Bank? Well it’s hitting some hard times right now - almost a billion bucks was given out in loans to politically connected shareholders including the president’s brother, Hamid Karzai, already suspected of having a hand in the booming opium trade. It would appear that most of those loans lacked collateral and even documentation.
The government of Afghanistan barely takes in revenues of a billion a year, so it’s highly unlikely they’ll be ponying up; and since we can’t continue propping up the world’s 2nd most corrupt government if their financial system collapses, guess where the buck stops?
And that’s not even taking into account the human dimension. Because we’re fighting a wily resourceful enemy who can melt into the population we continue to kill innocent civilians, often women and children. Even our paid pawn, President Karzai, recently warned that such conduct was unbecoming – of course, he had his hand out at the same time.
So why stay? Bin Laden’s dead and Qaeda prefers beachfront property in Yemen and Somalia.
Many of us came down heavily on President Bush for invading Iraq but we continue to turn a blind eye to President Obama’s endless war in Afghanistan. After all, those horrible Republicans and Tea Partiers would flay him alive if he cut and ran, right?
Perhaps, but when the American Embassy was blown up in Beirut, President Reagan moved the marines out of Lebanon posthaste. No one called him a quitter.
Nor did President Clinton allow us to become enmeshed in Somalia after Black Hawk Down. Those were different days, however, before the National Security cabal committed us to permanent war.
And have all the lives lost and money wasted made us the least bit safer? I think not. Blowing up God-crazed peasants half way around the world does little but line the pockets of corrupt foreign governments and our own military industrial complex.
Together they’ll tease out this endgame until the ultimate question remains - Who’ll be the last one to die?
Wednesday, 8 June 2011
Punk Rock Meditations
Black 47 played the recent Joey Ramone birthday party at Irving Plaza.
Now lest you think we were kissing the pinky rings of the men in suits, let me explain that Joey was lead singer for the punk rock band, The Ramones. He tragically passed away ten years ago and proceeds from the annual bash go to the Lymphoma Research Foundation.
Back in the 70’s rock music had become so complicated you needed the chops of a Franz Lizt or Django Reinhart to cop a gig. Then came The Ramones – play loud, fast, hard, simple and to hell with the consequences, the same spirit that had inspired Eddie Cochran, Jerry Lee Lewis and Gene Vincent a generation earlier.
The Ramones got their start in CBGB’s, a dump on the Bowery. Coincidentally, I happened to be there for their first performance. They weren’t very good, but who was back then? Debbie Harry had trouble singing in tune; Talking Heads were still searching for a sound.
But The Ramones knew exactly what they were after and within three months they were knocking cobwebs off the walls.
CBGB’s is gone but The Ramones legacy lives on, and at Irving Plaza many survivors of the original bands and audiences strutted their stuff. Most everyone looked in decent shape; then again, the lights were low and shades were de rigueur. Black leather for the men, black lace and micro-skirts for the ladies and it was the 70’s all over again.
Sheena Is A Punk Rocker, Rockaway Beach, I Wanna Be Sedated still sounded fresh and immediate. Those Ramones songs have morphed into nostalgic fun-filled anthems, but how strange to think that a hole-in-the wall scene at CBGB’s had such an effect on music and the general culture.
As I took in the scene from the balcony I was struck by how much things had changed. Although the stage was in full view, many people watched the show through the ubiquitous closed circuit TV monitors. The only television I ever saw in CB’s was the one a near naked Wendy Williams of the Plasmatics chain-sawed through.
The audience was lit up by cell phones held aloft to take pictures while many tapped away on keyboards, no doubt updating their Facebook pages – all well and good, but when I watched The Ramones, Television or the Dead Boys back on the Bowery, all I cared about was being blasted by the white heat that each of those bands was creating. I have no need of pictures; those fiery nights are forever stamped on my consciousness.
I left before the final song. I didn’t care to be there when the lights came up. The past is better preserved in darkness and as I strolled down Broadway through the midnight crowds - most of them hooked to iPods like junkies to the needle - I wondered why people choose to block out the distinctive beat of New York City.
Joey Ramone, Lou Reed, Bob Dylan and Dion DiMucci tapped into this perpetual poetry in motion. Then again, those guys were all about the music and taking it to another plane - they didn’t give a damn about celebrity, the modern Holy Grail.
The beat of the city turned them on, that holy rhythm that cares nothing for nobody just pulses on regardless. Walt Whitman identified it first; it’s unique and God given and you wonder why people have such a need to shut it out.
Joey, you were many things to many people. There were times I thought you’d stepped full-blooded out of a comic book. You were always a gentleman to me and I have many memories of you, but the best is seeing you stand alone on a hot, rancid East Village street, long, lean and lanky, soaking in the metronomic music of the streets.
Hopefully, there are kids out there who are just as disgusted with today’s music as you were back in the early 70’s. They’ve seen the light, they know just what they want to do; they’ve just got to find their own dump on the Bowery to do it in!
Now lest you think we were kissing the pinky rings of the men in suits, let me explain that Joey was lead singer for the punk rock band, The Ramones. He tragically passed away ten years ago and proceeds from the annual bash go to the Lymphoma Research Foundation.
Back in the 70’s rock music had become so complicated you needed the chops of a Franz Lizt or Django Reinhart to cop a gig. Then came The Ramones – play loud, fast, hard, simple and to hell with the consequences, the same spirit that had inspired Eddie Cochran, Jerry Lee Lewis and Gene Vincent a generation earlier.
The Ramones got their start in CBGB’s, a dump on the Bowery. Coincidentally, I happened to be there for their first performance. They weren’t very good, but who was back then? Debbie Harry had trouble singing in tune; Talking Heads were still searching for a sound.
But The Ramones knew exactly what they were after and within three months they were knocking cobwebs off the walls.
CBGB’s is gone but The Ramones legacy lives on, and at Irving Plaza many survivors of the original bands and audiences strutted their stuff. Most everyone looked in decent shape; then again, the lights were low and shades were de rigueur. Black leather for the men, black lace and micro-skirts for the ladies and it was the 70’s all over again.
Sheena Is A Punk Rocker, Rockaway Beach, I Wanna Be Sedated still sounded fresh and immediate. Those Ramones songs have morphed into nostalgic fun-filled anthems, but how strange to think that a hole-in-the wall scene at CBGB’s had such an effect on music and the general culture.
As I took in the scene from the balcony I was struck by how much things had changed. Although the stage was in full view, many people watched the show through the ubiquitous closed circuit TV monitors. The only television I ever saw in CB’s was the one a near naked Wendy Williams of the Plasmatics chain-sawed through.
The audience was lit up by cell phones held aloft to take pictures while many tapped away on keyboards, no doubt updating their Facebook pages – all well and good, but when I watched The Ramones, Television or the Dead Boys back on the Bowery, all I cared about was being blasted by the white heat that each of those bands was creating. I have no need of pictures; those fiery nights are forever stamped on my consciousness.
I left before the final song. I didn’t care to be there when the lights came up. The past is better preserved in darkness and as I strolled down Broadway through the midnight crowds - most of them hooked to iPods like junkies to the needle - I wondered why people choose to block out the distinctive beat of New York City.
Joey Ramone, Lou Reed, Bob Dylan and Dion DiMucci tapped into this perpetual poetry in motion. Then again, those guys were all about the music and taking it to another plane - they didn’t give a damn about celebrity, the modern Holy Grail.
The beat of the city turned them on, that holy rhythm that cares nothing for nobody just pulses on regardless. Walt Whitman identified it first; it’s unique and God given and you wonder why people have such a need to shut it out.
Joey, you were many things to many people. There were times I thought you’d stepped full-blooded out of a comic book. You were always a gentleman to me and I have many memories of you, but the best is seeing you stand alone on a hot, rancid East Village street, long, lean and lanky, soaking in the metronomic music of the streets.
Hopefully, there are kids out there who are just as disgusted with today’s music as you were back in the early 70’s. They’ve seen the light, they know just what they want to do; they’ve just got to find their own dump on the Bowery to do it in!
Wednesday, 25 May 2011
East Durham Memorial Day Weekend
“The Summer time is coming
And the trees are sweetly blooming
And the wild mountain thyme
Grows around the blooming heather
Will you go, lassie, go…”
The lassies will indeed be going, many of the lads too, up to the Irish Alps for Memorial Day Weekend.
East Durham will soon be the dead center of the universe – not to mention Gertie Byrne’s Leeds, a mere stone’s throw down the road.
This will mark my own 18th or 19th consecutive Memorial Weekend spent up there. Pardon the uncertainty but the moment you exit the New York State Thruway you enter an alternate zone where memories and expectations collide and harsh reality doesn’t reassert itself until you fumble for the E-Z pass the following Monday evening.
I sometimes wonder who was the first Irish person to set eyes on the Catskill Mountains, or, more to the point, what Paddy first strode down the dusty lanes around E. Durham? He must have experienced a sense of homecoming.
It doesn’t really look like Ireland up there but the Irish have left their mark. I religiously take a ramble up the back roads beyond The Blackthorne every Memorial Saturday. It’s usually as quiet as the grave; an occasional deer will look up in wonder at the sight of a human.
There’s a wall dividing two small fields long ago constructed by some Clare or Connemara man for I’ve seen its double both on the Burren and around Carna. Overgrown now, wild lilac and dogwood sprouting through its moss, once it was designed to put some manners on the land. The fine fields once hacked from gorse and maple are now almost totally reclaimed by nature.
That’s the way up there. It’s a country for tough, resourceful people who never say die. Take the Handels! The Blackthorne was burnt to the ground last September, but they reopened in late April.
Mountainy men and women have that kind of spirit and they throw open their resorts, motels and hearts to the rest of us for the summer season. And, oh by God, are we ready after long city winters rooting around concrete canyons.
It will be all action up there this coming weekend. Gavin’s, The Shamrock, Erin’s Melody, Weldon House, McKenna’s, McGrath’s and the others will be pulsing, half the people beyond familiar, the others soon to be friends.
Down at the Michael J. Quill Center, Tom McGoldrick has put his usual fine Irish Family Festival together. He’s even persuaded The Whole Shabang to reform for the occasion. Black 47 will have its usual 9pm spot on Saturday night before rushing back to The Blackthorne for a midnight show. They better have the Jameson’s handy!
As ever, though the line up at the E. Durham Festival is stellar, there are no airs or graces and you can rub shoulders with the like of Shilelagh Law, Andy Cooney, The Prodigals, Celtic Cross, Kitty Kelly, Jameson’s Revenge, Brigid’s Cross and a host of others.
I wouldn’t want to omit London’s Bible Code Sundays, Derek Warfield & The Young Wolfe Tones, The Gobshites, Padraig Allen & McLean Avenue and the King of the Catskills, Peter McKiernan, stars in their own right, who won’t make the festival but will rumble the mountains with their powerful joyous din.
There are those who won’t make it. This will be our first Memorial Day without Ginger Handel, housemother to so many musicians. She was always ready for a chat over a cup of tea, a few well-chosen words of advice to lost souls at their wits end, and if none of that worked, then an assurance that an extra dessert or two would not be missed from the pantry.
Yeah, we’ll miss her almost as much as her immediate kin, for she made sure to make us all feel part of a larger family.
The mountains may not be trendy but they’re strong and constant, and their roots run bone deep. If you’re new to the scene, well you won’t be a stranger for long. That’s the way it is up in E. Durham on Memorial Day Weekend.
And the trees are sweetly blooming
And the wild mountain thyme
Grows around the blooming heather
Will you go, lassie, go…”
The lassies will indeed be going, many of the lads too, up to the Irish Alps for Memorial Day Weekend.
East Durham will soon be the dead center of the universe – not to mention Gertie Byrne’s Leeds, a mere stone’s throw down the road.
This will mark my own 18th or 19th consecutive Memorial Weekend spent up there. Pardon the uncertainty but the moment you exit the New York State Thruway you enter an alternate zone where memories and expectations collide and harsh reality doesn’t reassert itself until you fumble for the E-Z pass the following Monday evening.
I sometimes wonder who was the first Irish person to set eyes on the Catskill Mountains, or, more to the point, what Paddy first strode down the dusty lanes around E. Durham? He must have experienced a sense of homecoming.
It doesn’t really look like Ireland up there but the Irish have left their mark. I religiously take a ramble up the back roads beyond The Blackthorne every Memorial Saturday. It’s usually as quiet as the grave; an occasional deer will look up in wonder at the sight of a human.
There’s a wall dividing two small fields long ago constructed by some Clare or Connemara man for I’ve seen its double both on the Burren and around Carna. Overgrown now, wild lilac and dogwood sprouting through its moss, once it was designed to put some manners on the land. The fine fields once hacked from gorse and maple are now almost totally reclaimed by nature.
That’s the way up there. It’s a country for tough, resourceful people who never say die. Take the Handels! The Blackthorne was burnt to the ground last September, but they reopened in late April.
Mountainy men and women have that kind of spirit and they throw open their resorts, motels and hearts to the rest of us for the summer season. And, oh by God, are we ready after long city winters rooting around concrete canyons.
It will be all action up there this coming weekend. Gavin’s, The Shamrock, Erin’s Melody, Weldon House, McKenna’s, McGrath’s and the others will be pulsing, half the people beyond familiar, the others soon to be friends.
Down at the Michael J. Quill Center, Tom McGoldrick has put his usual fine Irish Family Festival together. He’s even persuaded The Whole Shabang to reform for the occasion. Black 47 will have its usual 9pm spot on Saturday night before rushing back to The Blackthorne for a midnight show. They better have the Jameson’s handy!
As ever, though the line up at the E. Durham Festival is stellar, there are no airs or graces and you can rub shoulders with the like of Shilelagh Law, Andy Cooney, The Prodigals, Celtic Cross, Kitty Kelly, Jameson’s Revenge, Brigid’s Cross and a host of others.
I wouldn’t want to omit London’s Bible Code Sundays, Derek Warfield & The Young Wolfe Tones, The Gobshites, Padraig Allen & McLean Avenue and the King of the Catskills, Peter McKiernan, stars in their own right, who won’t make the festival but will rumble the mountains with their powerful joyous din.
There are those who won’t make it. This will be our first Memorial Day without Ginger Handel, housemother to so many musicians. She was always ready for a chat over a cup of tea, a few well-chosen words of advice to lost souls at their wits end, and if none of that worked, then an assurance that an extra dessert or two would not be missed from the pantry.
Yeah, we’ll miss her almost as much as her immediate kin, for she made sure to make us all feel part of a larger family.
The mountains may not be trendy but they’re strong and constant, and their roots run bone deep. If you’re new to the scene, well you won’t be a stranger for long. That’s the way it is up in E. Durham on Memorial Day Weekend.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
