TomFlannery.com

Both came to me today.

This morning I noticed the trees are starting to turn. The most beautiful time of year is upon us. I instinctively reached for my phone to grab a picture, forgetting that I haven’t had a phone for 2 weeks….since dropping it in a cup of Diet Coke with ice. So the photo will have to live on in my memory (it looked something like this pic but not the same). Someday I may get another phone, although there is something quite liberating about not having one, In truth it’s not much more than a tracking device you willingly carry everywhere you go, ensuring you’ll have zero privacy…..thanks to…..well….you. We needn’t worry about the NSA. They can just sit back and watch us spy on each other and read all about it on facebook and twitter.

Later in the day it came to me that if me and my friends live a full life, perhaps to 70 and beyond, this is what we’re going to have to get through. .

Bob Dylan is gonna die. Neil Young. Mick and Keith (well maybe not Keith). Sir Paul McCartney. Pete and Roger. Randy Newman. The guys in Los Lobos. Ray and Dave Davies. Chuck Berry. Jerry Lee Lewis. Little Richard. BB King. Fats.Tom Petty. Bruce Springsteen. It’s gonna be like losing Elvis…..over and over and over again, We’ve never been without these people. They changed the world, and they’re not faded pictures in dusty photo albums. Most of them are probably out there on some stage right now, playing music. They have never not been with us. When they pass, then what? It’s gonna be like trees in the fall going from green to winter bare. No more colors.

It was a scary thought and I wasn’t sure where it had come from. We are going to lose them all. I remember Elvis dying. And John Lennon of course. And then Kurt Cobain…..which affected me more than I ever thought it would. I cried when I heard the news. I was alone. I never cried in front of anyone, because there was no one in my life at that time that could have understood what losing him meant to me. All these years later there’s still no one.

Nothing lasts forever except a great song. Even the fall is temporary.

They are not going to burn out. They are not going to fade away. They’re just gonna go like the rest of us. Time is gonna run out. What do we do then?

Enjoy the explosion of colors. With a great soundtrack.

In a bit…

–tf

My Mother lost her brother last week. Donald Loftus died at the age of 89. His last few years were not easy ones. If there was justice in the world they would have been,

He enlisted to serve in WWII at the age of 16….although family legend has it that he was really 15 and got away with it because he was so earnest. Regardless, he was a child. When I as 15 I had to be home before it got dark. Donald was given a rifle and sent to the Philippines.

He was captured by the Japanese and somehow survived the Bataan Death March, He spent the remainder of the war in a POW camp, where he was subjected to unspeakable cruelties. War crimes. Horrors that no amount of time could possibly erase. At the end of the war when he was liberated he weighed 88 pounds.

Donald with my wife Karla

When he received his back pay (for his time as a prisoner), he used it to send his parents to Florida on a vacation. I never knew he did this. His eldest son mentioned it in a gorgeous eulogy he gave today at the funeral. I’m sure Donald has friends for 30 or 40 or 50 years who never knew he was a POW either. The Greatest Generation didn’t feel the need to talk about the things they’d done, or the things that had been done to them. Or the fact that they sent their parents on what may have been the only vacation of their lives. Never has a generation been more aptly named. Donald was once asked to lead folks in the Pledge of Allegiance and at once grew suspicious. “Why me?” he asked. “Because we wanted a war hero” he was told. “Well, go find one then”, Donald said. And that was that.

Parks and highways are named after crooked politicians. “Welcome to” signs for small towns tout them as “home of” somebody who could throw a football or baseball. We built marble statues of high school football coaches and granite busts of actors. Nobody names anything for quiet, heroic men like Donald Loftus. There will be no statues. No marble busts. He’ll live on in the memories of his 7 children and his 23 grandchildren. My Mom and her brother Frankie are the last 2 Loftus siblings. Two out of thirteen. He lives on with them. And us nieces and nephews. And the many friends he made. He lives on with us. But still, I can’t help but think he’s getting shortchanged. He’d certainly disagree with me. The last thing he’d want is somebody making a fuss over him. He never believed what he did was extraordinary. His country needed him and he went. His parents and his brothers and sisters needed him and he survived hell to get back home to them. His wife and children needed him, and there’s nothing more heroic than being a good husband and father.

If that’s not somebody worthy of recognition I’m not sure who is.

There’s a picture our family has. Somebody sent it to my father in the mail years ago. It was published in “Stars and Stripes” during the war. The Red Cross was allowed into POW camps, where they could collect names and serial numbers of the prisoners and send postcards home to the families. It meant “your son is still alive”. That’s all. No other details were permitted.

Something about this photo haunted my father. The men were lined up…and in the front row was a boy. He looked like a mascot. They all stared impassively into the camera. These men were all in their early 20s….but looked much older. Haunted. Emaciated. But not without a certain dignity. And this boy….his eyes burned. Like the men behind him he didn’t look mean. He didn’t look defeated. He didn’t even look defiant. I want to find some sort of flowery word here…but nothing is coming. He looked tough. I’ll settle for that.

My Dad thought it was Donald. It was the equivalent of a needle in a haystack. How many prisoners? How many photos? Everybody tried to talk him out of it. Dad was as stubborn as a Loftus (he married one after all) and kept writing letters. To the Army. To all sorts of government agencies. It took years. But finally. The men in the picture were identified. The boy in front was 16 years old. It was Donald Loftus. POW. The picture was taken at Christmas time. A propaganda attempt by the Japanese.

I was in the room when my Dad showed Donald that picture. It was maybe 20 years ago. Maybe less. It felt like I was intruding so I left. I have no idea what my Uncle said after seeing the photo. I never asked him about it. I never asked my Dad about it either. I regret that now.

What a moment that must have been. Two of the greatest generation…sharing a moment in time. And one saying, for sure, something like, “it was no big deal Joe. Have I told you about my latest grandchild? He’s gonna be a ringer…”

Men like this just can’t be replaced. The world seems a lesser place without them in it.

If you’re in that room with them, don’t walk out.

In a bit..

–tf

I don’t know if I have ADD or not. It’s a relatively new term. Attention Deficit Disorder. They used to just call you “fucked up” and be done with it. These days they want everything to be treated with a pill….and before they can prescribe a pill they need to name names.

Whatever. I get bored easy. I don’t mind saying it. I hate to repeat myself. I write songs mostly. It’s pretty much the only thing I’m good at. I’ve written hundreds of them. Mostly just for me to sing with a lone guitar. But sometimes (like my record “Teen Angst and the Green Flannel“) I’m wanting them loud. Sometimes I’m telling stories and sometimes I just pining for something or someone that ain’t mine. Sometimes I got something specific to say, and sometimes I’m not sure what I’m saying until I say it. But the truth is I’m much happier with a guitar in my hand than without one.

Kris Kehr is a friend of mine. Musicians aren’t normal. We move around a lot and aren’t very good at day to day things like keeping in touch. So the fact that Kris and I have seen each other probably 3 times in 13 years isn’t that big a deal. We drop each other notes and listen to each others songs and sometimes are in the same zip code at the same time and sing some songs together. We’ve got some things in common.  He’s a monster talent with a minimal ego….a Neil Young and Dylan freak who can pick up a broom and make music out of it. He’s also a brand new father with a heart of gold. Sleep deprived, in other words. Perfect pickings.

We’ve decided to write some songs together. And make a record. There’s no rules or timeline. We just agreed that it sounded like a good idea and started exchanging ideas. He sends me lyrics. I send him lyrics. He puts mine to music. I put his to music. We each have little recording studios in our basements. I send him demos. He sends me demos. In the meantime he’s incredibly busy with other things and so am I. But we make time for each other because that’s what friends do. Music is in his blood. It’s what makes up my veins. The fact that each of us has to deal with other things is a bit of a nuisance, but bills must be paid and all that stuff.

One of the songs we’ve co-written is called “Daddy’s Old Guitar” and Kris has already made it part of his solo shows. Kehr has a repertoire of about a million songs so to crack his set list ain’t easy. I’m proud of it.

Neither of us has any idea where this ride is gonna take us. We may write 10 songs. We may write 50. We may talk daily. We may talk once every 6 months. We live 90 miles away from each other. I’ve got 2 daughters to his one. The days of jumping in the car and conversing the old fashioned way are long gone. In truth we’re both old but won’t admit it. We’re both a little weary but that ain’t nothing a distortion pedal or a great hook can’t hold at bay….at least for a while. He’s a Deadhead. I’m a Drive-By Truckers devotee. We both passionately believe that if music can’t fix what ails you than what ails you ain’t worth fixing.

You got a better idea about how guitar players should spend their spare time, I’m all ears.

In a bit…

–tf

I think about my late father a lot. Every few years I re-read Roger Kahn’s “The Boys of Summer”. It makes me smile.

Kahn’s book is in the baseball section of stores. But it’s so much more.

It’s the story of fathers and sons…..of newspapers and newspapermen, of living with staggering gifts when you’re young, and seeing those gifts disappear before you reach middle-age. Thus, it;’s a story of aging, gracefully perhaps, but often flat out against your will.

It was my Dad’s favorite book. The Brooklyn Dodger’s were his favorite team. Pee Wee Reese was his favorite player. As I type these words I’m wearing my vintage Brooklyn cap and my Pee Wee dark gray away jersey. I’m thinking of Ebbets Field and Flatbush Avenue and Billy Cox at third base trapping grounders between his small glove and the dirt, like a man trapping a bug. I’m thinking of Snider desperately trying to hang in there against southpaws. I’m thinking of the peculiar genius of manager Charlie Dressen inspiring his troops in the 8th inning….”keep it close, I’ll think of something”. He often would, Oh but these Dodgers drove Charlie mad some days…”I wish they wuz all Reese’s and Robinson’s” is how he summed it up.

Jackie. The only man who could have done what he did. As much a pioneer as Martin Luther King. Just happened to be the most exciting ballplayer who ever lived. Could beat you with his bat, his glove, his legs, his mouth, or his fists. And he did it all while facing down America’s original sin. Died young. Hair turned white. His burden killed him in the end. But he opened the door, and it can never be closed. He belongs on the side of a mountain.

And Pee Wee. The southerner who grew up with racism ingrained in his DNA. But Pee Wee was a strong man, and strong men could flush out such things with their own common decency. And so one day on the field deep in the south, with Robinson being subjected to the most vile abuse small minds could muster, Pee Wee wanders over to second base and puts his arm around Jackie, his friend. The southern boys went crazy….calling Pee Wee “nigger lover” and worse. But that was that. A turning point. Robinson wasn’t alone anymore.

I don’t think there were 2 baseball men my Dad admired more than Jackie and Pee Wee. And my Dad loved Brooklyn. Talked to me about those afternoons, when for 65 cents you could sit in the grandstand and watch Furillo throw from deep right field to third base……with no bounce. The ball on a line….like a 300 foot fastball. Or Campy hit the ball a mile with that squat, weightlifter’s body that seemed impervious to….well anything. Rex Barney on the mound. He might throw a no hitter and strike out 10 or last 2 innings and walk 6. It was said he pitched like the plate was high and outside. But it was said he could throw as fast as Feller too.

I know why he loved the Dodgers. I know why he loved Kahn’s classic book. My father was the most decent man I knew. He was my Pee Wee. My Jackie.

And I’ll never stop missing him…

In a bit..

–tf

There’s always been a part of me that enjoys reading about baseball more than actually watching baseball. I’ve got stacks of baseball books. Everything from the history of the Brooklyn Dodgers to an exhausting 300 page tome written about a single game (Good game though….the 75 World Series classic when Fisk hit the home run to end it in the wee wee hours). I’ve read every word Roger Angell and Roger Kahn have ever scribbled. Great writers both, their talents so undeniable they would have undoubtedly been literary giants regardless of what they chose to write about. The fact that both men chose baseball says a lot about how epically human and endlessly fascinating the game is. (If the 2 Roger’s don’t wind up in the Hall of Fame I’ll be stunned, although Gil Hodges isn’t in so there’s no accounting for taste)

Yet there’s part of the game itself that sometimes seems almost too leisurely. Your eyes can start to glaze over watching batters stepping in and out of the box, dressing and undressing themselves between every pitch, which is thrown by a pitcher who feels the need to step off the rubber and rub the ball like an un-hatched egg every 60 seconds. Long gone are the days of the 2 hour game. Long gone are the days of a pitcher finishing what he started. Long gone are the days when a guy would hit a home run and simply put his head down and run the bases, as opposed to admiring his own handiwork as if he’s never seen anything like it. Ever. Long gone are the days when a pitcher could throw inside without some .220 hitter taking umbrage and charging the mound. Long gone are the days you could buy a beer and a hotdog for less than the cost of a new hardcover novel. Three hour games are common. Four hour games are not that rare. Baseball players only need to worry about playing baseball. The rest of us have work in the morning.

Plus there’s always the sneaking suspicion that what you’re watching has been chemically altered. The greatest ballplayer I ever saw was Barry Bonds. Then we all discovered we weren’t really watching Barry Bonds at all. And they all came tumbling down. McGwire. Sosa. Clemens. Rafael Palmeiro and his infamous wagging finger. Now everyone is a suspect.

But still we come back. We somehow convince ourselves that it won’t happen again, or that it’s not still happening now. Or both. Or maybe we just don’t care. Hell, wasn’t that McGwire/Sosa duel heartwarming stuff? Didn’t watching Clemens throw harder at 40 than he did at 20 make you feel like a lazy ass? How many gym memberships did Roger inspire? Who remembers the 2011 National League MVP anyway?

Still, the history hooks us and won’t let go. I actually remember Willie Mays with the Mets. I grew up with Pete Rose and Johnny Bench and George Brett and Carl Yastremski and Bucky Dent breaking the hearts of New England in that one game play-off…..a game that I saw as a kid because it started in the late afternoon….TV ad revenue be damned. Imagine that? I nearly caught a Mike Schmidt home run ball in my first ever game, more thrilling because I was about 450 feet away in the upper deck of left field. In flight the ball looked as if it was shot out of a cannon.  I don’t think I’ve ever been more awed in my life. A few years later I saw Schmidt hit a fly ball that conked off the roof of the AstroDome. I was non-plussed. I’d been watching him bludgeon the houses on Waveland Avenue when he visited the Cubs and Wrigley field for a long time by then. These guys seemed capable of anything. So what if I got to meet Mike Schmidt after he retired (at a golf tournament….he could hit it a country mile by the way….but mostly crooked) and the guy turned out to be aloof and arrogant. Being in the heads of countless grown-up 10 years old might make one cranky after a while. Especially after surviving Philly fans.

What is it that I want from this game? What do they players owe me for my allegiance?

Fall is in the air. I’ve accumulated a summer’s worth of patience. It’s time to start watching baseball again.

In a bit…

–tf

Got a major project in the works. Stay tuned…..

My wedding gift to you! I wish you and Brandon love and happiness always.

Karissa

Hard to explain what you’re looking for
maybe somebody like your Dad
someone who’ll provide for you
the things you never had
someone you can go to
in the middle of the night
to hold you…stop your shaking
tell you it’s gonna be alright
Karissa you’re coming home

Hard to put your finger on
what being alone can do
to a heart that needs a home
and doesn’t have a clue
how it’s supposed to carry on
in an empty bed
no one there to share the dreams
stuck inside your head
Karissa you’re coming home

If you see her say hello
you’ll notice that big smile
like finding your favorite song
on both ends of the dial
Karissa you’re coming home

Wedding days..black and white
that sums it up real good
all the grey swept away
’till the naked eye can’t tell
that a match made in heaven
has got anything on this
one simple promise
sealed with a kis
Karissa you’re coming home

If you see her say hello
you’ll notice that big smile
like finding your favorite song
on both ends of the dial
Karissa you’re coming home
Karissa you’re coming home

Today is Memorial Day. Those who have died for this nation deserve more than one day, of course. In the hustle and bustle of daily life other things invade. Bills. Kids. Mortgages. Jobs. One day at a time. It’s not always easy. But we’re at least given a fighting chance. Lots of men and women died to make this so.

It’s not an even playing field by any means. That’s because our leaders have rarely been made of the same stuff as the soldiers they sometimes so cavalierly send off to battle. But that’s on us. We need to do better. Walk the rows of any cemetery today. See the flags erect in the breeze. Ask yourself. “Am I worthy of their sacrifice?”

We should pause every once in a while to remember. To reflect. And to whisper thanks.

My father did not go to war because he was colorblind. He used to joke that the Army was afraid he’d go running around shooting the wrong guys. Pop was such a gentle man I can’t even imagine him flying bomber missions like his brother Jim, or running for cover in London as German bombs fell all around him, like his brother Tom was forced to do. I was named after his brother, who one night had to drag a friend named Frank Burke back into a bomb shelter after Frank insisted on screaming at the overhead planes, “come down and fight like men you Nazi bastards!” Clearly this was a man who’d fit in with the Flannery clan, so Tom brought him home to meet the family after the war, and Frank promptly fell in love and married my Aunt Clare.

Dad was such a gentle man. But then so was Jim. And Tom. And Frank Burke. Yet they fought. They were needed and they went. They didn’t make a big fuss out of it. I can’t remember any of them even talking, much less bragging about what they’d done. They didn’t consider themselves special.

I do.

My Mom’s sister Frances remained single her whole life, despite countless marriage proposals (and more than a few diamond rings) from GIs who fell in love with her. She was an Army nurse who saw the horrors of war up-close. She saw what bullets and bombs do to mostly teenage kids. She was tough as nails and as soft as porcelein. She could swear like a sailor and soothe like a priest in the confessional. She was a dark haired beauty, 5 foot nothing, who was as brave as any man who ever stormed a fortified position. After the war she lived alone for the rest of her life. With her dogs. I don’t think she ever got over the things she’d seen. She loved all her boys. She could never make a choice when some begged for her hand. I don’t think she ever felt lonely. She never talked about the things she’d seen.

Mom’s brother Donald was 15. He told recruiters he was a little older and they believed him. He was sent to the Philippines and was soon captured by the Japanese. He spent the entire war in the hell that was a Japanese POW camp. The things he endured are almost unspeakable. An actual photograph, tracked down by my Dad after the war, survives. Taken by the Red Cross, it shows Donald with the other prisoners. He’s easy to spot. He’s the only boy surrounded by dozens of grizzled men. He looks like a mascot. The picture fills me with wonder, and then horror.

Over the years details of the tortures my Uncle suffered leaked out, though never from him. He never spoke of his ordeal. Not even to his own children. He came home from war a man not to be trifled with, but I’m told he went into war a boy not to be trifled with! He somehow lived a full, entirely decent life. Loving husband, father, and grandfather. He’s now in his 90s. The eyes still sparkle. Though his body has begun to break down he’s still in there. The kind of man they don’t really make anymore. I can’t think of him without being proud that I share the same blood.

A simple thank you on this one day seems woefully insufficient. But I’ll say if anyway.

Thank you.

“The Greatest Generation”. Used in any other context it would sound hokey. Like being subject to one of those “when I was our age” speeches.

Tom Brokaw coined it I believe. Brokaw was inspired to write his book of that title after hearing about and then meeting Gino Merli, who of course is one of our own. Gino’s heroics that long ago night in Belgium would make Hollywood director’s blush. You read about them, and you expect a giant colossus to emerge from the wings. What you get instead is a 140 pound kid who should have been in high school. There he was instead, in a strange country surrounded by the bodies of his friends, single-handedly fighting off wave after wave of German attacks until reinforcements arrived. When it was over his first request was to go to mass, so he could pray for the souls of the men he’d killed. They don’t make Gino Merli’s anymore. He received his congressional medal of honor from President Truman, then came home to Peckville to graduate high school.

My Dad was a good friend of Gino’s. I never got to meet him. But I did meet his wife and family….and I’m a better person because of it. I wrote a play called “The Last Thoughtsof Gino Meri” that has been performed over 100 times to more than 20,000 people. Most had never heard of Gino Merli. I hope some of them are thinking of him today. Like I am.

The soldiers of this nation have always done their duty. The duty of the rest of us is to ensure that the sacrifices they’ve made in the past, along with those we’ll ask of them in the future, will not be in vain. More will die. More will go off to fight as one person and come home as another, not quite whole. How a nation treats its soldiers, both dead and living, says a lot about the kind of nation it is.

Be worthy. Earn this.

In a bit..

–tf

I play music in bars. It’s an interesting way to spend evenings.

I’m not a road warrior by any means, but I play when I can where I can. I’ve played upper-crust places and joints that have seen better days. I’ve played for good wages and I’ve played for no wages. I’ve played for 150 people and I’ve played to one person who was eating a cheeseburger and watching golf on TV…..a TV that was above my head so I pretended he was intently listening. I’ve played solo acoustic, I’ve played in duos, and I’ve played full band shows. I’ve been told I was too loud. I’ve been told I wasn’t loud enough. More times than I can count guys would come up to me while I was singing a song and ask questions like “dude, where’s the bathroom?” Sometimes you’re the windshield and sometimes you’re the bug.

Most of the time people aren’t listening, because they are not at the bar to hear you. They are at the bar to drink. You are the equivalent of the music that is piped into elevators. To the layperson this sounds pretty bad. I mean, why bother playing at all if that’s the case? Well, playing music is fun for one thing. Musicians play for themselves all the time. We get to go out in public and play and get paid for it? People who listen are a bonus.

And they are out there.

I don’t care how jaded you are. When you’re singing “The Weight” for the 400th time, and suddenly the guy at the bar you thought had passed out lifts his head and starts singing “Take a load off Anniiiiiie!!”, and then half the place is trying the 3 part harmony at the end of the chorus, it doesn’t get much better than that. It’s hard to explain. We’re up there singing, and we’re watching you. Are you mouthing the words? Are you tapping your foot? Is your head bobbing up and down? If you are, we see you. You make our nights.

(On this topic….it’s no wonder musicians who achieve sudden fame so often go batshit. To go from scanning the bar searching for someone singing along….to instant adulation? If your head ain’t anchored to your neck with pikes from the start, it’s probably inevitable you’ll turn into a self-absorbed jerk.)

There’s lots of folks who live life hard who settle into bar stools for hours at a time. They’re this way because the day is a grind. It’s long and it’s tiring and it’s not glamorous. They’ve got no picket fence to come home to. I don’t want to get all Working Class Hero here….but that’s just reality. There’s some rough looking folks out in our local watering holes. And god bless them all.

They’re the backbone of the operation. The young 20 somethings with the golf shirts who drink too many light beers and yell for “Free Bird” all night long are so common I don’t think most musicians even notice them any more. Or at least, this group all starts to look the same. Traveling in packs, the girls dressed way too nice for a place that has a hole the size of a head in the bathroom door. The guys with their cropped hair and golf tans, trying to look tough but being careful not to antagonize the guy at the bar with the chain hanging from his wallet spilling shots down the front of his Harley Davidson t-shirt. Every night in every bar, there’s sort of an un-easy truce between the regulars and the interlopers. It’s very interesting to observe.

Some of the places I’ve played have reputations of being “rough”.  “Oh, that’s a rough bar”. We’ve all heard that one. I’m sure the reputations are hard-earned and well deserved. But, as goes is most places, you won’t find trouble if you’re not looking for it. Musicians never look for trouble. We just arrive, set-up, and play. In all my time out there I’ve been treated fine. Bartenders. Waitresses. The regulars. They just seem to take musicians under their wing. Treat the gig with respect and you’ll get a fair-shake all around. That’s more than I can say for the folks I have to deal with when I leave the bars. You can’t buy class. If you think you’re too good for a bar, the place probably doesn’t want you in the first place.

That being said, it ain’t always pleasant. At a recent show a girl who should not have been wearing a thong wore a thong and sat at the end of the bar, in my sight line. That threw a wrench in a few songs. Later on a guy visited the men’s room, which was about 6 feet from my location, and dropped something so nasty in there I got dizzy. This was after the girl ran into the ladies room saying she had to vomit, and promptly vomited. She had threatened to do so at the bar itself, but the bartender merely pointed an index finger at her and said “don’t you dare do it!”. An impressive display of authority. Which reminds me of the night the drunk girl kept invading the microphone to sing along, until the bartender had enough and actually tackled her during a final stage rush. Athleticism of this sort you rarely see anywhere, much less at 1:30am.

So that’s that I guess. Just felt like getting this out there. The next Friday or Saturday night you crash early, take a moment and think of the music being laid down in bars near and far (real music by real live people) and the folks that music was created for.

In a bit..

–tf