TomFlannery.com

It’s 2014. Despite the many ghastly lessons of history, many among us still advocate war. It’s all so red white and blue. It’s what we do. We kick ass. We invade and smart-bomb and do it all on TV. The bad guys die and the good guys who die get shipped home in the middle of the night when nobody is looking. In other words, the good guys don’t die.

Then we write bad country music songs about it. It’s a ghastly business.

We seem terribly flippant about the whole thing. It’s so remote. Hell, airstrikes in Mosul are easy. The people advocating for them don’t live in Mosul.

Is there anybody out there who thinks another American soldier should die fighting for Mosul?

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

The one thing these pro-war folks seem to have in common is that none of them has ever fought in a war. Like Dick Cheney. The former Vice President managed to get himself 5 draft deferments during Vietnam (when asked why he said “I had other things to do”). That’s some serious evading. Ted Nugent shit-in-his-pants worthy stuff. You’d think someone so hawkish about shooting people would have shot somebody himself. In war I mean. Spraying buck shot into the face of a hunting buddy after pounding a 12 pack of Coors for lunch doesn’t count. Or at least it shouldn’t. But we live in strange times. Who knows what lurks in the bowels of evil men?

Not me. I’m not about to check the bastard’s bowels either. But still.

Cheney had his chance to fight for his country. He chose not to.

Hey. Lots of guys chose not to. But most were anti war then and remain so now. They have the courage of their convictions to fall back on. That’s good enough for me. It’s good enough for most Americans I think. But Cheney. This guy seems special. A raving lunatic….a professional torturer…a blood fiend with actual fangs willing to send US boys into harms way for the most disgusting of reasons. Profit. And cheap partisan politics.

Cheney is an American monster, a man with the moral compass of a pack of half starved hyenas. A shredder of the constitution. A genuine war criminal. An abomination not seen since the days Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon were swilling gin in front of the JFK portrait in the White House. Cheney should he in jail. The guy is so twisted he even publicly stomped on his own daughter to score cheap political points. His daughter had the misfortune to be born gay and republican, a combination which is illegal in Wyoming. Or at least in the Cheney home. Lucky for the Cheney’s they have 2 daughters. The other is a homophobe. So she’s the normal one. A true hater like Pops. Imagine that version of “Daddy’s Little Girl” at the wedding? They were probably plotting an assassination mid-dance while everybody cooed “aww, look how nice”.

Cheney is a man who once called Nelson Mandela a “terrorist” and then voted against creating a federal holiday for Martin Luther King in case anybody got the wrong idea how he really felt about uppity niggers. Dick Cheney is also a medical miracle. A man without a heart who has somehow managed to have multiple heart attacks. All medical expenses paid for of course….by a government sponsored heath care plan. Ain’t that America for you and me?

I’m sure the man has some decent qualities, although they’ve remained hidden thus far. As a matter of fact, Cheney’s only real rival for the low road in US politics in my lifetime may be Gordon Liddy, the third rate Watergate burglar who’s parlor trick was burning his own arm with a match without flinching to show how loyal he was to his boss, John Mitchell. Mitchell too ended up in jail. Quite a pack of patriots eh? But even Liddy, whom Nixon called “that fruitcake”, served his country in Korea. He also advocated the murder of newspaper men who disagreed with Nixon. And ATF agents, whom he suggested be shot in the head to get around the body armor.

Liddy is also a “Christian”. In case you couldn’t tell.

But I digress.

The Dick has been in the news lately for a series of public utterances so vile and disgusting even some of the storm troopers from Fox News seem revolted….as if they’ve been asked to interview a live snake on television. Cheney seems less human than ever, and more and more like a Grendel-type monster ready to swallow a litter of kitten to scare a pack of 5 year old girls. He’s back to give Iraqi war advice, never mind the fact that the only thing he got right the first time was the location of the oil fields. The sheer Chutzpah of it all has forced even the most fear crazed war mongers in my circle of friends to avoid me in bars and supermarket check out lines. And these are folks who have blow up Reagan dolls under their beds at home. They are not easily thrown off Rush Limbaugh’s talking points. But something is happening here…and even they aren’t sure what it is. But they know they need to shut down this swine before he gives the entire damn charade away. It’s like having Barry Goldwater show up at your house drunk and uninvited with a bunch of guys wearing hoods with saddlebags filled with mescaline and boys underwear. It’s bad PR.

Dick Cheney has finally brought the nation together. We can all agree that he’s an asshole.

And that may be the most patriotic thing the old fool has ever done for his country.

In a bit…

–tf

AN OPEN LETTER TO ALL WHO BLAME OBAMA FOR…WELL….EVERYTHING

I feel your pain. Truly. But soon it will be over. Two more years. Then all will be right again in your world. Your grass will start growing again and we might invade a middle eastern country or two. For old times sake.

Unless.

You know what I’m going to say. Unless Hillary is our next president.

If that happens, you are all doomed. Because she has a long memory. She is PISSED. And your will pay. Dearly. You will look back on Obama’s two terms as the good old days. Nothing more than an extension of the cracker policies of George W Bush. I’m sorry that Obama is a black man. But, well, that’s the way these things go. He’s the whitest black man in the country. Small comfort for you fellas, but there it is. Hillary’s hubby was blacker than Obama. Don’t blame me because you are too dumb to realize this. Obama has more in common with Nixon than he does with James Brown. You people are fools. When he’s gone you’re gonna be writing blues songs about him.

But back to Hillary. She is going to CREATE new government agencies just to fuck with you. Your guns? Gone. Your religion? Ha! She’s gonna tax your church parking lots. She’s coming for you Bubba. You never thought it would come to this when that skank was giving head to Hillary’s husband did you? Of course not. But karma is a bitch. And so is our next President. She is going to make you squeal like Ned Beatty from “Deliverance”. And when she’s done with you, George Orwell is gonna feel like Mister Rogers.

You people think you know how to HATE? Bah. She will school you like the varsity beating the JV. She will beat on you like a gong until you scream “enough”. And only then will you be tossed into Guantanamo Bay. Without charges. For years. Or at least 2 terms, since you fools have forgotten you need an actual candidate to beat her over the next 6 years. Who you got?

Hillary travels the world now, refusing to remove her sunglasses. Like Bono. And make no mistake. She considers herself Bono’s equal in every way, which should TERRIFY you. She considers her critics as Bono considers his. Like shit on the shoe. Enemies to be scraped off. Dumb mutants who don’t know they are being set up like watermelons on a shooting range.

Hide your guns. She has a freakish breed of top secret dogs that will burrow through your flower beds and find them. I’ve seen the Power Point presentations. Reagan’s “Star Wars” presentation looks like it was put together by amateurs in comparison. This is serious business. Your tax dollars at work. Ever hear of a boomerang? Look it up bubba. These dogs are meaner than half starved Australian dingos. And the Fox News logo makes them CRAZY. Like Pavlov’s mutts. But way more cynical. Save time and start practicing throwing rocks at each other, because anything heavier is gonna be illegal. She’s gonna melt down your guns and use then to create statues of Chelsea outside of every public school in the nation. Private schools? You and Jesus and the flag? Ha! Find a good cave. And beware of informers. They are everywhere.

I know this sound bad. But really, it’s worse. Did you expect any different? Did you ever read the drivel your masters have written about this woman? This crazed lesbian murderer? You waved a cum splattered dress in her face. You shit in her homemade cookies. You made fun of her assorted hair styles. The bitch of Benghazi.

She will crush you like grapes. After all, she’ll be the President of the United States. That’s her JOB.

We can call Sarah Palin a crazy lunatic bitch because even you brain damaged fools wouldn’t pull a lever with her name on it. You are twisted but you are survivors. Props to you. And you’ve turned Ronald Reagan, a man dumber than a fruit fly, into a mythic American hero. I underestimate you at my own peril.

But you’ve really given yourself an enema on this one. Hillary is meaner than you are. And even worse, she’s SMARTER. She picks fools like Palin out of her teeth every morning.

And soon she’ll have the IRS at her fingertips. And homeland security. And the armed forces. And the FCC. I won’t even discus what happens when old sissies like Scalia start dropping dead of mysterious causes. Guess who is gonna replace him on the Supreme Court? Odds are 2 to 1 on Ellen Degeneres. Not that there’s anything wrong with that eh?

Good luck Bubba. Eight years of boots on your face might not leave permanent scars. Hell, Ned Beatty looked totally normal once he pulled his pants up. He just never ate bacon again.

In a bit.

–tf

Jesus. Sitting on my back porch with my reading lamp and a can of Yuengling. Listening to Lyle Lovett singing “Just the Morning”. Not bad boyos. Not bad at all.

My cat is out here trying desperately to kill a rabbit. I don’t have the heart to tell her to give it up. She’s a tenacious little bugger. But at this point the rabbit is clearly mocking her, making mad dashes to and fro before escaping under the fence. My cat was not right on the day we brought her home. Something about being part of a litter that was collectively dropped on their heads. Didn’t get all the details. No matter. Some two years later she needs about 6 months of therapy to fit into anyone’s definition of a house pet. We keep her around because we feel responsible for letting her out of that cardboard box in the first place. Admittedly this ain’t the easiest place to shit in your own house. Plus, as I always say, you can’t choose your family.

Flashes of heat lightning caress the sky. No sign of rain behind it. Sky just finished burning off the red. Sailor’s delight. Lyle onto “I’ve Been to Memphis” now. Sometimes you’re up all night because you couldn’t match the evening with the right songs. Try some Lyle if you have any idea what I mean.

This porch is what sold the house for me. So what if it was covered in tile when we bought it and was so rotted that my wife put her foot through the floor a few months after we moved in. We had no way of knowing such mundane details. So we had to rip it up and replace it, at a cost that seemed obscene then and almost comically egregious now. But what the hell. It’s guaranteed “for life” and requires “no maintenance”. Telling me that is like offering me a night with Halle Berry for a roll of quarters. Sign where? Ok then.

I regret it not at all. That stupid cat is sitting in the middle of the yard pretending she’s being filmed for a PBS Nature episode….acting like some badass Cheetah. Her tormentor has apparently packed it in for the night. So here she comes. She’s now sitting on top of the mini fridge, guarding the beer I guess. I told you she was family. I attract nothing but weirdos. Friends. Women. Cats. Name it.

Lyle. “She’s Already Made Up Her Mind”. Gorgeous and deadly. Lyle is not for the children. They’d be up all night crying and pissing the bed.

My daughter is 16 years old today. This makes me feel like I’m 20 different people. I’m so proud of the young lady she’s become. Yet still I wake up shivering in the middle of the night wondering if this world is worthy of her. Lyle singing “North Dakota”. “They look across the border / to learn the ways of love”. I feel like crying. And I’m not even sad. “If you love me say I love you / if you love me take my hand.” Who is gonna watch after my baby girl when I’m not around?

Storm. So much for my weather forecasting. In North Korea the little dwarf would have me flogged for such incompetence. But the porch is covered. You think I’d buy a home based on some slab of floor with the sky for a ceiling? Hah. This is serious business out here. I feel safe amongst the savages. Even vertical awnings to keep the prying eyes away. Money is no object. Put in on the card dammit!

Cat seems much less brave now with the rain pissing down and the wind howling. She’d shame the shit out of PBS. At the moment she’s hiding under my chair. The perfect moment for the rabbit to attack methinks. Dumbass cat might get a taste of the fear.

Well that should do it for now. Lyle is singing the blues. All my love is gone. Surely that’s a good place to stop. Was talking “country music” the other night. For me the list is short. Lyle. Yoakam. Haggard. Willie. And some dead guys. Johnny Cash and Hank. I don’t go much further. I was told Tim McGraw was the real deal because “his ass is so tight a quarter would bounce off of it”. They were talking about how he looked in jeans, not how he is to the list above as my deranged cat is to Cheetah’s on PBS. (on the other hand…Lyle was banging Julia Roberts on talent alone…don’t you dare try this at home)

If I Had a Boat. These 3 minutes are enough for the hall of fame.

And so it goes. Blame it on the fear.

In a bit.

–tf

Writing for a living is a dastardly business.

So I’ve heard anyway. Even though I fancy myself a writer of sorts, I’ve never attempted to earn the family bread at it, which is just as well. My father made his living as a writer. He seemed a happy man, mostly because he cared not a whit about money for money’s sake. He made just enough coin to keep us all clothed and fed, with enough left over for a week at the beach every summer…which cost $150 in them days….or about half of what you’d pay to get a hotel room for a single night at the same beach today.

A tough nut in either era for sure, but things seem more obscene now. You could do more with less when I was a kid…and maybe that’s one of the things that makes growing up such a pain in the ass.

After my Dad retired, I actually found out what his salary was. And how many times he re-mortgaged the house to keep the carnival running. And about his assorted 2nd jobs. And all the free-lance work he did so we wouldn’t be humiliated on Christmas mornings when exchanging notes with the neighbors.

So I got a business degree in College, which is the degree you get when you have no idea what you want to do with your life, but you’re pretty sure you don’t want to be brutishly poor. Like a social worker. Or a newspaper man.

Nobody is more boring at parties than people who have a business degree. Their eyes are all glazed and they frequently make no sense whatsoever and have an alarming tendency to bogart everyone’s joints. All they talk about is the novel they’re just about to start writing. It’s depressing. These people should be stomped out with winkle-picker shoes.

At least I never threatened to write a novel. I know better. That would be ghastly business. I can barely sit still long enough to play “I Can’t Explain” on the guitar. My mind wanders in curious ways. Frequently, when driving, I end up heading in the wrong direction and don’t notice until I’m so far from my initial destination that I decide to go someplace else. It once wandered so much that when I showed up for a final exam in college I was asked what I was doing there. It was the first time I’d made it to class, apparently.

I passed the exam with flying colors, which tells you as much about a business degree as you need to know really. It was like 3rd grade, except they didn’t call your parents when you didn’t show up.

Actually, I’ve written just about everything except a novel over the years. Songs. Plays. Essays. Political diatribes. A short story or two. All varieties….some of it printable….and some of it incontrovertible gibberish. But really, it’s the only thing I ever felt like I had an aptitude for.

Some of my writing I’ve even been paid for. Some. But the net result is horrifying….a financial catastrophe of gargantuan proportions. Maybe farming or organizing democrats pays less per hour. Maybe. Which is why I refuse to refer to myself as a writer. Because it’s bad juju. I’d feel like a wretched failure. Lucky me I’ve got a business degree to fall back on, so I spend my days in a mental fog of number crunching and being subjected to the Peter Principle over and over….pure data overload, occasionally staring out the windows….like a convict peeking through bars. And, as I keep being reminded, I should be grateful. I have a “real” job and I’m not wearing a name tag and a goofy hat with my other Business degree pals from the class of 1988. (Or perpetually stoned, like the ones who decided to stick around and get Master’s degrees. These poor wretches should have their own telethon).

What a year that was. 1988. Free from the excuse of “I’m not a grown up yet”. Set loose on coin operated laundries and unsuspecting roommates. Paying for beer with rolled up coins and pretending that I was well qualified to live this way until I turned 65 and retired so I could then get sick and die like a good catholic. It was a hideous year of heartbreak and fear. My first job out of college was with the defense industry, so I was immediately confronted with the evil truth that nothing I’d learned in college was relevant anymore….especially not when you’re 22 and fleecing the government like it’s a morning-after-unpaid-sleeping-hooker with a head full of benzos.

Trapped like rats for 60 hours a week (OT was rampant and turned everyone into greedy savages) we’d only be let out early on Election Day…..told to vote Republican, otherwise we were surely doomed.

Ah youth. I was still smart enough at the time to notice that I was surrounded by old people who seemed resolute only in their sense of defeat. I’d drive home from work every day weeping like a little girl….desperate to reach a bar, where I could be surrounded by more old people who seemed resolute only in their sense of defeat. But at least they’d buy me rounds because they felt bad for me. “Don’t worry son”, I was told. “At least you still have hair.”

So yea…where was I?

Writing is a bitch. But it’s fun. And you get to set your own hours. And wear pajamas. Shelby Foote wore nothing but pajamas for 20 years while writing his monumental Civil War trilogy. Beat that boyos.

The place I worked at out of college? It’s now an empty hulk, with grass growing through the cracked floors. Rumors say it was built on an ancient indian burial ground, and anybody who toiled there will have nothing to look forward to but lay-offs and rehabs and looted social security. Even right wing warmongers at the highest level of government couldn’t save the place.

We have 2 choices in life really. To float or to swim.

Well 3, but failure is not an option for a writer.

We can take the flogging….but will not surrender.

In a bit..

–tf

I’m pretty sure I was in 7th grade when I bought my first Led Zeppelin record. Bought all my records from Ralph’s Record City in Scranton….a glorious little hole in the wall run by some pretty cool heads who were never condescending, no matter how much you asked for it. Ralph’s Record City and places like it are the reason why people still love records. The camaraderie of it all. Knowing you were not the only freak in the neighborhood. It certainly isn’t because of how good they sounded (assuming they didn’t skip, requiring things like taping pennies to the arm of the needle…it gives me the willies just thinking about records…”Whole Lotta Love” skipped horribly when I brought it home….and when I finally heard the song the way it was supposed to sound….I swore there was something wrong with it……as if the song isn’t fucked up enough with Plant having his orgasm in the midst of it and all…)

But I digress…which I am prone to do on a Sunday night after too much sun.

Those first few records were pretty staggering stuff for a 13 year old. One listen to “Communication Breakdown” could turn you into a speed freak….just trying to capture that feeling over and over again of Page in overdrive, with Plant’s screechings reaching every corner of my house. Enough so that my Mother was constantly banging the ceiling with a broom in a mostly vain attempt to get me to turn it down. And I was listening on one of them portable cheapies….not much bigger than a piece of carry on luggage today. If I had today’s sound equipment when I was 13 our house may have fallen in on itself.

During my 8th grade year I was on a state championship caliber basketball team. I was the Ralph Malph…the guy who never bothered to change my street clothes under the warmups because I never played. But they were some good times bad times nonetheless. On a team trip we were let loose in some mall, and I bought a copy of “The Song Remains the Same” with the money my parents had given me for food. Double album. Of course I couldn’t listen to it until we’d gotten home. If it were up to me the team would have forfeited then and there so I could find a record player and fire up “The Rain Song”.

I survived “The Song Remains the Song”, one of the most self-indulgent live albums of the 70s (and that’s saying something), but what I remember most is taking the liner notes of the album (by Cameron Crowe as I recall) and copying them nearly word for word for some English project. I got an A. It was the first time I was ever called a good writer.

I’ve tried to hate Led Zeppelin ever since.

They were part of the natural order of things though. Most near-teens found them, started drinking and drugging and dreaming, and lived happily ever after. Some of us veered left…..found The Kinks and The Who, and got all snotty and started making fun of “Moby Dick” and “Dazed and Confused”, and waited patiently until the Clash came around and made us feel good about turning off the radio every time it played “Stairway to Heaven”….even then an overplayed chestnut of “classic rock”…which had just been invented.

But a funny thing happened on the way to….well….wherever it was I was supposed to be going.

I never hated Led Zeppelin. But….still….so what if I was hiding in the back-row during those midnight screenings of “The Song Remains the Same”….wearing a hoodie and nipping from a flask…trying to feel superior. Why was I there? What ghastly force kept pulling me  back towards Jimmy and his evil band of groupie ravaging, depraved Aleister Crowley worshipers?

And what in the sweet name of Blanket Jackson am I doing speaking such gibberish now? Get a hold of yourself son! The 70s are long gone. Bonham died like a Spinal-Tap drummer…..and Plant is now a country music frontman playing the Harford Fair circuit with Alison Krause. Nobody really cares about Jones because he’s only the bass player. Page is as grey as a badger, forever having to endure the shame of playing with David Coverdale. It’s over.  Nothing to see here. Move along.

Except it isn’t of course. Page has spent the past few years alternating between re-working the band’s entire catalog and calling Plant names for not wanting to tour again and make a kajillion dollars (recently Plant was heard to say that Page needs a “good rest”. Some good old fashioned prima donna press bitching!)  Zeppelin is back.

Not that they ever went away.

Their first 3 records have been re-mastered and re-released with scads of unreleased and live material, alternate takes and different mixes. I wanted to be cynical about all of this.

My daughter has their entire catalog on her Ipod. She is 15.

I said…..”what about the Clash?” She said, “who?”

So you see….we are doomed to repeat the past. And I still can’t figure out the riff to “Heartbreaker”.

I miss them days. I miss Ralph’s Record City. I miss the anticipation of hearing the music. No leaks in them days. No short cuts.

I miss the decadence, even though I was always way too much the guilty irish catholic to participate (well…mostly).

Today I listened to “The Battle of Evermore” and “Four Sticks”…..grinning from ear to ear. “When the Levee Breaks” forced out the headphones. Those drums are way too much for my quiet neighborhood.

And “Fool in the Rain”. You might not love it….but I sure do. Still.

Lots of people and things have broken my heart over the years. But Led Zeppelin never did. And, I don’t expect them too. Ever.

In a bit..

-tf

We have crossed some sort of Rubicon here.

A US soldier, after 5 years of captivity, is brought home. And many of his fellow countrymen and women are outraged. Some genuinely so….but most simply because outrage is what they’ve been told to feel by the radio and TV they’re allowed to listen to (Not exactly boat rockers these people…but very reliable when election time rolls around).

But regardless of the level of sheeple-ness…all would prefer that Bowe Bergdahl be left behind…apparently. Because the US never negotiates with terrorists, except when the US….you know….negotiates with terrorists. Iran Contra ring a bell? Gipper? Rumsfeld and Saddam and the double secret probation handshake? Osama the Russian hating freedom fighter…give him some stingers! Anyone? Anyone? Is a US soldier’s life not worth 5 whacked out jihadists buried in a Cuban jail…..convinced virgins are waiting with open legs once they die?

Is that the argument?

If so, you sound sorta un American. Sorry.

Can we not prove the man’s guilt before we suggest that the proper punishment for him is to forever leave him in the hands of our mortal enemies?

Bergdahl has been accused of desertion. Serious charges to be sure. As I said…hopefully he’ll have his day in court and if he’s guilty….well…military justice can be brutal. It’s not for me to decide. Keep in mind that, if you believed initial press reports, Jessica Lynch fought to the last round, and Pat Tillman was shot by the enemy and died gloriously on the field of battle. Also keep in mind that Bergdahl has spent the last 5 years as a prisoner of the Taliban…who are surely not the most morally enlightened people on the planet. My guess is that his time with them was not always pleasant. I’m sure he’s glad to be coming home.

The truth is, nobody but Bergdahl knows the truth…yet.

But then the truth matters little in this case.

What the haters know for sure is that they hate Obama. I mean they really fucking hate him. Like Hillary hate. The kind of hate the lights up the sky in red white and blue clusters. The same people who were screaming about Bergdahl being held are now screaming that he’s still not being held. Because….you know….what good is outrage if it’s not coming out of both sides of your mouth at the same time?

They hate Obama so much that they have gone from the sublime to the ridiculous. Their hate has mutated. It’s like cancer cells. It has no conscience. It goes after anything healthy.

And once again, Americans look like rank, raging goobers in the eyes of the rest of the world.

But we all must opine on this, do we not? Front page news. When you knock gun nuts off the front page, that’s the business. But hate sells. Hell….they hate Bowe Bergdahl’s father because he grew a beard.

I’m not sure why anybody would want to be President. Here’s a guy making less money than an NFL punter, and whatever he does is put through the meat grinder of social media and instant punditry….where rationality goes to die. Folks on the left see George W Bush Lite, while folks on the right see….well….a black guy in the Oval Office….but they see more than that.

Wait a minute….I’m not sure if they do. Regardless, if Obama was dying of thirst on the side of the road, these folks wouldn’t piss in his mouth for fear they’d be giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

Let’s be clear here and tell it like it is. These lunatics would rather see a US soldier die than even suggest the possibility that Obama may have simply acted to re-unite a family torn asunder by a needless war. And if he did not act, and Bergdahl died while held captive by the Taliban…what then? If word got out that President Obama could have gotten him home by releasing some raw sewage from Gitmo? Sweet mother of Blanket Jackson! Batten down the hatches and Annie get yer guns!

The bat-shit-edness would be barely fit to print. “Impeach” would be the most tame word they’d use. Ted Cruz might choke to death on his own bile. John McCain could once again conveniently forget that his country never gave up on him as a soldier. I mean….no point in being a hypocrite if you don’t intend to take it as far as you can go right?

And so here we are again, feeling outnumbered….once again allowing the inmates to run the asylum.

I do not know if Obama did the right or the wrong thing. I know it’s the kind of decision that I would not want to make. It’s the kind of decision a President has to make. Every damn day. History will judge him. It can be a ruthless bitch. Or, in the case of Reagan, it can fellate a reputation until the truth becomes irrelevant. It all depends on who is writing it.

Good luck Mr. President. You’re gonna need it.

In a bit..

–tf

As a kid I always figured I was the heir apparent to my Dad at the Scranton Times. After all, Scranton may not have invented nepotism, but we came damn close to perfecting it. I was counting on this.

My Dad was a newspaper man….an elegantly curious reporter, editor, and columnist who claimed that never once looked at the clock while he was working. Author of over 4000 columns. I couldn’t wait to take over for him. I never actually ran my plan past the powers that be at the Times, however. And I didn’t have much experience. Or any experience really. But I was a romantic dammit. The job was mine.

And what a job! Writing. Words. For a living.

But still, something was nagging at me.

One time in my teens I actually convinced my Dad that I could write one of his columns. So he said, “go ahead”. My chance at fame. Jimmy Breslin, check your rear view mirror!

As a recall, it was a masterpiece! I handed it to him, perhaps typed out on a scroll. He read it and chuckled some. Then said it would run “next week”.

It did. Only I didn’t recognize it.

My Dad had gone rogue on me. He’d turned into an editor.

Granted, he managed to turn 800 words of mis-matched gibberish into something he could put his by-line on without fear of retribution, but still. What kind of wretched business was this?

I began to have second thoughts.

Then, I actually spent a few weeks at the Times as an intern. Not as a writer, but as a coffee fetcher/delivery boy. It was I who personally delivered papers to the District Attorney and the Mayor, among other deities. And filled up company cars with gas. Romantic it was not.

But still, I did get to hear of the one reporter who so hated editors that he constantly dreamt of (he used the word “dream”, not “nightmare”, by the way) dragging his nemesis down the stone stairs by one leg, so that his head bounced off every step.

Clearly, this was a world I was unfamiliar with.

My second thoughts multiplied. The newsroom seemed like a lunatic asylum. With smoke. Lots and lots of smoke. The place, essentially, smoldered 24 hours a day. Nobody talked in a normal voice. It was like being at a cock-fight.

And then I accidentally found out what newspaper people were paid. I could probably make more doing something else. Like busking with my guitar outside the Pub Charles.

Anyway….years go by. It’s time for my Dad to retire. And there’s a new kid in the newsroom. Irish kid. Kelly. Dad says to me one day…”this Kelly kid….he’s got the sizzle.”

And, as it turned out, my job too. Carpetbagger.

Dad was a sort of mentor to Chris Kelly. And Chris respected my father. They shared a bond.  I really think it was easier for my Dad to step away knowing that Chris Kelly was in the wings.

Two totally different styles. Chris more in your face. My father more low-key. But both were offended by boors, especially boors in positions of authority. And both utterly fearless. My father refused to get a private telephone number, despite the fact that the phone would ring like crazy….from friends and foe alike. I’ll never forget how he dealt with one persistent critic. “When you get a newspaper column, you can write about what you want. Thanks for calling.” Click.

Dude never called again.

I don’t always agree with Chris Kelly’s pieces. But then again I never always agreed with my father’s pieces either. If anything I think my Dad was almost too loyal. A guy could be an incorrigible asshole, but my Dad would get a hold of some story of the guy secretly visiting sick kids in the hospital, and choose to write about that. “Everybody knows the other stuff”, he’d say. Basically, if he could think of anything nice to write about you, he probably never wrote about you at all. And maybe that, in a slippery sort of way, was even worse than being in Kelly’s cross-hairs. Ok, maybe not worse. Being in Kelly’s cross hairs has got to be like jock-itch mixed with indigestion. I’d ask Corbett…but if he thought I even knew Kelly the Governor might have me frog marched into a mine fire.

Just this week Chris Kelly was named best columnist in the state of Pennsylvania. I wish my father was here to see it. He’d have been damn proud.

So Pop, this column is for you. And no pesky editors either on the interwebz.

And Kelly….it’s for you too. Pop never wore a Ramones T-shirt, but he could rock too.

Maybe when you hit 4000….some hungry kid is gonna start hovering around your desk. Wanting what’s in your head to be in his head too.

Man, I hope so.

And…er….am I the only person who think that every year Kelly looks more and more like JXF? Dudes have the same jowls. And hair. Uncanny.

In a bit…

–tf