Happy Birthday, Malachy!

Happy birthday, Malachy! You once told me that if you were lucky you’d still be working at 90. Well, my dear friend, you’re now within 10 years of your target.

You also once proclaimed that you’d never want to be Grand Marshall of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, “for who’d want to walk up Fifth Avenue with 50,000 Irishmen at your back!”

And yet, for all your bitter-sweetness, you’re the real deal - an Irishman unto yourself.

Your mother, the infamous Angela, once murmured to me over a fag and a drink in the Bells of Hell, “Each of my sons is a private Gethsemane to me.” You’ll be happy to know she didn’t single you out, although she was looking directly at you and Frank doubled over with laughter.

The bad Limerick years were far behind you all by then. Life was full of laughs, and the particular warmth that comes when the booze is flowing freely in the company of good friends.

But in quieter moments the wistfulness was palpable; that’s when the pain and despair of your upbringing could flare suddenly at some perceived slight to the weak or oppressed.

I could never understand the accusation that the poverty of body and spirit in Frank’s book was exaggerated. Wexford in the late 50’s still had streets reeking of malnutrition and ignorance, what must Limerick of the 30’s and 40’s been like?

Others from such backgrounds could put maters in perspective, but not you. Injustice was a cancer to be confronted, head-on if possible.

I know you attended many protests, for any I showed up to you were already there. It was reassuring to see your girth and conviction and to fall in step behind you. One was heartened to know that if blows would be struck or rocks thrown you’d be a bigger and better-known target.

You were the first shock-jock I ever heard – articulate and egalitarian, unlike most current rating-obsessed ranters. I once accompanied you to the studios at WMCA. At that time you were on Nixon’s enemies list. Little wonder, for you cleaned his clock in your opening soliloquy.

The phone banks instantly lit up; most callers were Irish-Americans who, at the least, cast doubt on your parentage, manhood and various imagined peccadilloes, sexual and otherwise.

You retorted in kind and I was amazed at your pointed, slanderous, scathing eloquence until I remembered that you were a product of the back lanes of Limerick where a sharp tongue was more common than a hot dinner.

You were often seen at Irish Republican protests and why not – your father was from the North, and Sean South wasn’t just a name in a drunken sing-along to you. But it was more than that: Habeas Corpus and the right to dream have always been sacrosanct in your book, as is the belief that democracy means a lot more than just having a vote.

When you “stood for” Governor of New York I supported you because I’d never seen you being dishonest, except when you refused to pay the Con Edison bill for the Bells of Hell and got poor Jimmy Gavin to drill a hole through the wall to hook up to your neighbor’s power lines.

But to tell you the truth, Malachy, I always felt you should run for Pope! We’ve never had an Irish one but you look the part and you’d do a slap-up job.

I know, you’ve been happily married for 45 years and your wife’s a carpenter, but every pontiff has drawbacks and wouldn’t Diana be great around the Vatican. There must be a rake of unhinged doors, warped windows and the like.

The truth is, you’d suit any office for you’re a man of principle. I never saw you turn down a fight for justice no matter how daunting. You’ve lost many, but won a few humdingers. More than anything else, though, you’ve been a light in the darkness for those coming behind you.

Happy 80th, Malachy! By the way, I think you’d make one hell of a Grand Marshall – sure, you could always walk backwards.

Up The Republic!

What is the nature of a republic?

Well, broadly speaking, it could be described as a political system where each citizen has an equal say in governance.

A worthy aspiration but hardly the case throughout history! The vaunted Greek and Roman republics indulged in wholesale slavery. The first French Republic violently repressed its citizens. While the founding United States of America granted voting rights only to its male propertied class, and might not have come into existence had it confronted its own slavery issues.

And yet all three provide the DNA of our current republic which not only grants universal suffrage but allows us to “throw the bums out” on a regular basis.

Then why do so many people feel disenfranchised? From Tea Party to egalitarian dreamer there is a negative mood abroad concerning the efficacy, and even the need, of government.

Cynics can handily say, “You get what you vote for!” And with barely half the American electorate even bothering to pull a lever they have a point.

Money has corrupted the republic. It’s not just that this is the era of the permanent campaign where candidates step off the victory podium and immediately dial their donors; if you’re plain old Joe Blow from Jericho you can’t afford to run for congress.

66% of Senators and 41% of representatives are millionaires, whereas the general population boasts only 1%. Even in the great pitchfork revolution of 2010, the average worth of a newly minted senator was $4 million, that of a rookie representative $500,000.

1% of the population now owns 35% of the wealth of the nation while the top 20% possesses 85% of the national pie. So, where does that leave everyone else? You got it - buying Powerball tickets!

Such wealth distribution figures closely resemble those of the Gilded Age of 1870-1890. Thus, after 140 years of striving that gained universal suffrage, the right to collective bargaining, and a once expanding middle class, the country is in many ways back to square one.

That’s not to say that there have not been huge advances in health and education, although each is getting progressively more expensive, in some cases prohibitively so.

But not to worry, at our fingertips we have access to whole worlds of sports, music and celebrity gossip that would dazzle previous generations. Or is this just “bread and circus?” Keep the plebs occupied while you loot the treasury.

Take the current efforts to regulate the financial industry - one would imagine that the 80% of have-nots who suffered the brunt of the recent economic downturn would welcome any efforts to protect them.

Not so! By merely waving the banner of “over-regulation” financial industry lobbyists are merrily de-fanging this crucial legislation. In our 24/7 ADD cable culture, judicious sloganeering will always whack common sense.

In previous eras – both Republican and Democrat – the rising tide lifted all boats. Now only the yachts are rising.
Basic capitalism has been upended – where once profit was reinvested in industrial expansion and human capital, now many companies are sitting on huge cash reserves or paying outlandish salaries to top executives while making do with fewer workers.

Given the recent whiplash dips and jumps in stock prices does anyone have confidence in the integrity of stock markets now dominated by high-frequency trading programs? And yet a large percentage of the private retirement capital of the nation is at risk in these Wall Street casinos.

Surely it’s time for the federal government to offer some kind of well-publicized, tax-free retirement bond that could provide ballast to the current roller coaster mentality of the 401(k)?

But that would take a major initiative in a political culture beholden to big money; and that paralysis will likely continue until the bottom-feeding 80% of the population demands a more equitable share of the national pie in a reformed republic.

Unlikely, you might say, but there is a deep unease across the entire political spectrum. Many people feel that it’s finally time to get beyond the dumb slogans that pass for politics today before this “shining city on a hill” becomes just another banana republic.

The Priest and the Fireman

Anyone knocking around Manhattan in those days knew people who perished, but for me it all comes back to the priest and the fireman.

Even ten years later I can look offstage and imagine where each would be – Father Michael Judge standing by the bar, impeccably coiffed, surrounded by friends; and Richie Muldowney NYFD, darting around the room bantering with all and sundry, crooked smile lighting up the joint.

Though both frozen in time they summon up the city as it used to be. For New York changed ineffably on 9/11when the spirits of so many unique people departed. They’ve been replaced, of course, great cities do that, but it’s not quite the same, is it?

I often thought of Mychal as a mirror, he was so empathetic he seemed to reflect your own hopes and fears. I never knew anyone who helped so many people; he was always concerned, forever providing a shoulder.

I guess he came to see Black 47 to let off a little steam. I’m not even sure he liked our music – his own taste ran towards the more conventional – but the rhythms, juxtapositions and overall message fascinated him and, anyway, he liked to be in the thick of the action.

Richie was hard-core Black 47. He knew all the words, the players, the other fans. He delighted to show up unexpectedly at out-of-town gigs; the moment you saw him you knew it would be a good night. To think such an irrepressible spark was extinguished so early.

I remember jaywalking across Times Square the first September Saturday the band returned to Connolly’s. The “crossroads of the world” was so deserted in those immediate post-9/11 nights it felt like a scene from a cowboy movie where sagebrush is blowing down the street.

But cops, firemen, emergency workers, the mad, the innocent and those who just couldn’t stay at home needed somewhere to go – to let the pressure off – and that was the band’s function.

Those first gigs were searing. You couldn’t be certain who was missing, who had survived, who was on vacation, who just needed a break from it all. When a familiar face walked through the door the relief was palpable, someone else had made it.

The atmosphere – though on the surface subdued - was charged with an underlying manic energy, a need to commemorate, celebrate, to show that life was going on. That would be some small revenge on the bastards who had caused all the heartbreak.

And yet, what an opportunity was missed in those first weeks. That smoldering pit down on Rector Street had galvanized the country. We were all so united; we would have done anything asked of us.

Republican, Democrat, Independent, we all came together as Americans. We would have reduced our dependence on foreign oil, rejuvenated poor neighborhoods, taught classes in disadvantaged schools. You name it - nothing would have been too big, too small either.

But no sacrifice was asked, much less demanded. Instead, 9/11 was used by cheap politicians to get re-elected; patriotism was swept aside by an unrelenting xenophobic nationalism that brooked no dissent. The US was converted into a fortress and the lights were dimmed in the once shining city on the hill. Worst of all, our leaders sought to use the tragedy as an excuse to invade Iraq.

Look at us now, dysfunctional, walled off from each other and the rest of the world. That began when the national will for a positive response was squandered in the aftermath of 9/11.

Though he was finally hunted down, sometimes it seems as though Osama Bin Laden won, for we’ve become a fearful, partisan people, unsure of ourselves, uncertain of our future.

But then I think of Mychal and Richie, their smiles beam across the years and I know that the current national malaise is just a patina that covers the soul of the country – it can be wiped away. It’s not permanent. We have greatness in us yet.
That’s the hard-earned lesson of 9/11 and will always be the message of the priest and the fireman.

George Kimball and The Bells of Hell

I recently attended George Kimball’s memorial gathering. I’d hardly call it a service, for George bowed his head to Lady Luck alone and then only at the track.

It was a “round up the usual suspects” crowd of Lion’s Head denizens, drinkers with writing problems, hard bitten journalists, with a leavening of the boxing community led by promoter/MC, Lou DiBella, and a host of Boston scribblers who had shared ink and drinks with George during his long sojourn in the land of the Red Sox.

Everyone looked considerably wiser, hair color tended towards the salt and pepper when not albino Irish white; the ladies, lovely as ever, did George proud, dressing to the nines – no one ever accused the deceased of not having an eye for the fair sex.

The speeches were riotous – many drawn from George’s darkly, hilarious letters and emails; all washed down with fine wines and a generous selection of beers.

I gravitated towards the Bells of Hell veterans. A fairly grizzled bunch, none untouched by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune; yet each still blessed with a ribald, if somewhat gallows, humor. As tales were traded, I swear the years tumbled away and a caustic innocence descended on the group.

I’ve hung my hat in many the saloon and yet there was nothing quite like The Bells. It was the mix of people, I suppose, and the times.

It’s hard to imagine the 70’s in New York from the vantage point of today’s overpriced Branson on the Hudson. Don’t get me wrong, I still adore Gotham’s very stones and will only be removed feet first.

Scorsese nailed both town and era in Taxi Driver – not just the outlaw chaos of the city in the 70’s, more the dizzying fatalism – bad things were bound to happen and you had better stay a step ahead.

Your saloon was your sitting room; getting there was often an adventure – navigating your way home always so. My direct route from the Bells took me past the doorway where Harvey Keitel had his East Village encounter with Jodie Foster. It was a rare evening I didn’t encounter some scene just as vivid.

Still The Bells was always worth the trip. The characters were diversely gripping, each one’s flaws usually on display. Cliques abounded. For instance, I’m almost certain that Frank McCourt and Lester Bangs never spoke, although they often stood within earshot of each other.

The egalitarian jukebox united us. I first heard Anarchy in the UK explode from between Ellington’s Take the A Train and The Patriot Game by the Clancy’s - regular patrons themselves.

No one had any idea that Frank even entertained a notion about becoming a writer although he regularly made fun of those who did. An inveterate curmudgeon, he loved to prick the bubble of anyone unwise enough to make a pretentious comment in his presence.

When fame did come, no one enjoyed it more than Frank; he literally lit up, though he never lost his sardonic humor.

Lester, on the other hand, was world famous in those years – at least to Rock cognoscenti. He might show up with Joey Ramone or Joe Strummer in tow, although never as trophies. He fully believed that rock stars should shine only on stage, and never condescend to their admirers.

Mr. Bangs had his demons and they sometimes emerged when he drank – but quietly. Towards the end, he was pushing back against the encroaching straightness that he foresaw strangling New York. I shudder to think what he would make of his city today.

Back at the George’s memorial, Kerouac’s pal, David Amram, jazzily rendered Will You Go Lassie Go – a final farewell on the low whistle. David first introduced us to the concept of World Music in the back room of The Bells – “all music mixes, man; it’s players who don’t.”

Then it was time to go. With hugs and handshakes and promises to stay in touch the grizzled Bells battalion bade farewell. And George Kimball’s spirit set off to join Frank, Lester and The Clancy’s in the ghost of a beloved saloon on 13th Street and 6th Avenue.

Vote first - Complain later

Voting has consequences – non-voting has even more!

Some hatfuls of votes in Florida caused George W. Bush to be elected 43rd President of the USA. Ten years later we’re still paying for his decisions to return a hefty US Government surplus to the taxpayer while fighting an unnecessary war in Iraq.

In 2008 Barack Obama seemed to promise so much and, in fairness, he inherited a banjaxed financial system and an economy hemorrhaging jobs. He made some unpopular decisions but, at the least, prevented a new depression.

I can’t even remember who got my vote in 2010. I know I voted because I didn’t want my grandfather’s ghost thundering at me as he did in life, “People died for this right, and you’re throwing it away?”

Regardless, voters changed the balance of power in the House of Representatives by electing a significant number of Tea Party candidates.

“A movement will always trump a political party.” Another of my grandfather’s edicts and how the Tea Party has proved him right. The tail now spastically wags the Republican dog.

A coldly cynical move by Senator McConnell and new Speaker Boehner to co-opt the Tea Party by adopting their “slash and burn” tactics brought the US government to the brink of default and tarnished its credit rating and international standing; this despite the fact that both men wholeheartedly supported all President Bush’s profligate spending.

But that’s democracy for you. Now how about a couple of questions for you, President Obama?

Did you ever hear of the Kennedys? Particularly Joe Sr., Jack and Bobby? They had a dictum – don’t get mad, get even.

If by some unlikely chance they’d suffered your recent negotiation humiliation, they would already have set up campaign offices in each Tea Party represented district. Their field coordinators would be shouting from the rooftops that 401(Ks) are down the toilet because of Republican intransigence; likewise no one should bet the farm on ever receiving Social Security and Medicare benefits.

Ever played poker, Mr. President? If so, how come you casually tossed away the ace of the 14th Amendment by revealing beforehand that you wouldn’t use it in the recent negotiations?

You often remind me of the most popular boy in school – top of the class, great sportsman, all the girls love you. There’s nothing you feel you can’t do - including build bridges between the two political parties.

But that’s not on the cards, Mr. President! Republican politicians hate you. You make them look bad. You saved the banks, the car industry, the very capitalist system. Though they’d never admit it, you even pandered to them with your hated stimulus by giving 40% of it back in tax breaks.

“What’s a guy to do?” You must be saying to Michele over your steamed Broccoli every night.

How about toughening up? Start listening to some real pols – even that pearl-draped vixen, Nancy Pelosi; after all she passed your Health Insurance Reform Bill when you were about to cave on it.

You think Standard &Poor would have downgraded US credit if the Kennedys were running the show? That company would have been gelded back in 2008 for giving their clients AAA ratings on toxic derivatives. You didn’t even slap their wrists. No wonder they don’t respect you!

You’ve got one thing going: the lack of any credible Republican policy. Cutting taxes got us into this mess. Slashing budgets does not create jobs. And as for playing their usual God card? Fuggedabout it! I’ve got Him working full time on the Mets for the next couple of years.

All that aside, no one gets re-elected by saying “things will suck twice as bad if the other guy gets in.”

You still have a chance to fulfill your promise, and deliver a healthy economy and decent unemployment figures by 2016. But you won’t do that by patting backs and offering pious platitudes to people whose main objective is seeing the door hit your posterior on the way out.

Nice guys don’t always finish last but they usually come in second. And that’s not where this country needs you to be in 2012.

A Vast Wasteland and Enya

I’m in a hotel in Gweedore. Donegal have just come from behind to take a tense game from Kildare.

The pints are flowing but the jet lag has finally nailed me; so I beat it upstairs before I’m dragged out to the celebration in Leo’s Tavern. Enya’s family owns the joint, you never know who might be there and it’s a long road to Wexford tomorrow!

Too dazed to read I switch on the television. Maybe get some word on how the Shakespearian drama is unfolding in DC. Will President Hamlet have stiffened his resolve? Will Lords Boehner and McConnell realize that tea parties can be poisonous affairs?

But, as ever, television is a vast wasteland with a dizzying array of talking heads stating the banal obvious in the few moments their corporate masters are not hawking deodorants, gas-guzzlers and Viagra.

“A vast wasteland” – now where did that phrase come from?

Oh, a little speech given fifty years ago by Newton M. Minow, then chairman of the FCC, when he invited America to “sit down in front of your own television set... keep your eyes glued until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.”

At the time the only choices were the three networks. Yet the speech caused uproar because Minow was suggesting that since CBS, NBC and ABC had been given free and exclusive licenses to use the airwaves they should provide bona fide “public service” programming.

Minow’s reward? Well, Gilligan’s Island named a sinking ship, S.S. Minnow, in his honor; but he also received encouragement from Attorney General, Robert Kennedy.

Both men shared the forlorn notion that television could be harnessed to raise public consciousness on national issues and not merely be a cash cow for three lucky corporations.

The networks kept their powder dry – the feisty Kennedy was already tackling the mob, Jimmy Hoffa and southern racists – the center might not hold.

How right they were. Jack Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. Lyndon Johnson’s family had extensive radio interests giving the new president little desire to interfere with television’s commercial promise.

Minow eventually got the boot and the wasteland expanded in ways neither he nor Kennedy could have imagined.

Before his departure, however, he helped launch a string of non-profit educational television stations currently known as PBS. Unfortunately, even these timid oases of sanity are now under attack for the heinous crime of balanced news reporting.

“Television deals too much with covering controversy, crimes, fires, and not enough with the country’s great issues. Our presidential campaigns are obsessed with the trivial.” Minow trumpeted.

Jeez, he should check out today’s 24/7 cable coverage! Poor guy didn’t even have to deal with the current mania for celebrity, reality shows, or the unmasking of sexual foible.

But it’s the sheer fakery of TV that offends more than anything. I still cringe at the sight of hepped-up talk show audiences, knowing that they’ve been goaded into action by some gofer moments before the camera rolls; while how sad to watch the salty and hilarious off-camera Jay Leno morph into a puppet mouthing inanities that you wouldn’t tolerate from your neighborhood drunk.

As for content – I was once chided by Bill Maher on Politically Incorrect for having the temerity to suggest that congressmen couldn’t be elected unless they were millionaires (he since appears to have seen the light).

No, my job as a “guest liberal” was to attack Maureen Reagan by ripping into the reputation of her Alzheimer’s suffering father. Controversy and boorishness, as ever, is more important than fact on the boob tube.

Could TV have fulfilled its indubitable promise? Could Minow and Bobby have turned things around? We’ll never know – one nut with a gun rendered such speculation academic.

Ah, to hell with jet lag and the rocky road to Wexford! I’m going out to Leo’s. Maybe Enya will be there; I’ll wear yellow shades and tell her I’m Bono, we can hold hands, sip pints and watch TG4 together.

Meagher of the Sword

He may have been the most famous Irishman of his generation, definitely the most controversial. Born in Waterford in 1823, he disappeared in Montana 43 years later.

Thomas Meagher was a lawyer, journalist, rebel, soldier, political prisoner, and his admirers would like to erect a memorial to him in Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery.

It’s been a long time coming. His greatest achievement, perhaps, is that by example he persuaded many recently arrived Irish to enlist in the Union Army during the Civil War.

In truth, though, Meagher of the Sword, had lived an amazing life before he even set foot in the US. An unlikely revolutionary, his father was a wealthy merchant who sent him to the Jesuit Stoneyhurst College in Lancashire where he picked up an upper-class English accent that often grated on his nationalist admirers.

But could he talk! Throughout his life halls would pack at the mere suggestion of Meagher “speechifying.”

He made common cause with Thomas Davis, John Mitchel and other Young Irelanders who had grown tired of Daniel O’Connell and the system of patronage associated with his Repeal Association.

In their view O’Connell had grown too cozy with the British Whig establishment. During a fiery speech in the midst of the Potato Famine Meagher refused to repudiate the use of physical force to repeal the union between Great Britain and Ireland. Hence, Meagher of the Sword!

After the failed Young Ireland rebellion of 1848, Meagher and his comrades were sentenced to death but later transported to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania).

Always a man for the grand gesture, he promised the sentencing judge, “My Lord, this is our first offense, but not our last. If you will be easy with us this once, we promise on our word as gentleman to try better next time.”

Blessed with great charisma and romantic flair, he married Katherine Bennett, the daughter of a convicted highwayman soon after arrival “on the other side of the world.”

He eventually escaped to New York City where the Irish greeted him as a hero. He studied law and founded the weekly Irish News – a forerunner of the Echo – along with the radical Citizen with his fellow escapee, John Mitchel.

The comrades split at the outbreak of the Civil War. Mitchell supported the South while Meagher who abhorred slavery declared for the Union imploring his fellow Irishmen to join him in a company of the New York State Militia, later to be called the Fighting 69th.

After some early successes he was promoted to Brigadier General and commissioned to lead the Irish Regiment. At the bloody battle of Antietam things began to go wrong for Meagher. Much of his force was decimated and he was blown off his horse. He was accused of drunkenness, a charge he bitterly denied.

This accusation resurfaced throughout his career, it being noted that he “kept the best table in the Union army.” However, in his defense, he aroused much jealousy for he was a garrulous partisan man who made enemies easily.

After the war, Meagher was appointed Acting Governor of the new Territory of Montana. He campaigned to have Montana achieve statehood but became embroiled in local politics when he freed an Irishman who had been sentenced to death by a group of vigilantes.

On July 1st, 1867, he fell from a steamboat into the Missouri River. His body was never recovered. Controversial to the end it has been suggested that he was pushed by the aforementioned vigilantes, old Confederate foes or even English agents. Then again, perhaps he was just drinking too heavily.

Some feel that despite his brilliance he never achieved his potential. Others count him as one of the great leaders of the Irish Diaspora. Green-Wood Cemetery is commissioning a bronze portrait of him.

To make a donation go to www.green-wood.com/donate For more information, call Green-Wood Cemetery Historian, Jeff Richman, at 718-210-3017. Or just visit peaceful Green-Wood, one of the treasures of New York City, final resting place of so many well known Irish.

Meagher of the Sword stirred great passion in his lifetime. A lightning rod, had he lived he would have changed the course of Irish America.