TomFlannery.com

It’s a blitzkrieg of negative political attack ads. They run right after each other too, which can be bewildering. One minute a candidate is accusing his opponent of being a diabolical tax and spend goat fucker, and the next moment the aforementioned diabolical tax and spend goat fucker is accusing his opponent of kicking jobless people in the teeth to keep corporate interests happy.

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle, if you can wade through the slime. Chris Carney is my DC rep, but I’ve never supported him since he supported the war. But to vote for a right wing crazy like Tom Marino is repulsive to me. So I do believe I’ll sit this one out. I no longer care much about the democratic process, since it doesn’t really exist. These guys are all bag men for corporations in one way or the other. And while I think it was both historic and proper to vote for Obama, if only to keep Sarah Palin on the lunatic fringe, I’m plenty pissed off that he hasn’t done more…or less depending on your point of view. Bailing out the stupid greedy fuckers on Wall Street wasn’t exactly what we put him in the Oval Office to do (nor putting in charge of the US Treasury former Wall Street hacks and expecting different results. That is the very definition of insanity). And what could have been a monumental universal health care bill was gutted by so many republican hyenas that what we’re left with is hardly FDR-ish. We’re still illegally detaining people in Cuba. We’re still waging a war.

The economy being in the toilet scares people. Fear is what drives the crazies to the front of the line. Obama inherited an 8 year spending orgy that would have made Reagan blush. But Obama is the new face. And like it or not, it’s his mess now. And he’s getting the blame. Is it fair? Of course not. But it wasn’t fair that Reagan got credit for freeing the hostages either. So it works both ways. A dog shits on my floor…guess who gets to clean it up?

Fox News. Limbaugh. The “Tea Party”. This right wing noise has always been with us. In various forms. From Father Coughlin to McCarthy to Goldwater to Nixon to Reagan. Put Spiro Agnew in drag and what have you got? Sara Palin without the good legs. Being a student of history, none of this surprises me. Hate sells. Always has. And it’s good theater. Say what you want about a gas-bag like Limbaugh. But he’s good at what he does. He knows his audience. He dumbs it down. Nobody on the left can touch him….because the left insists on explaining things. Who’s got time for details when you can just scream “socialism” in a crowded theater? It matters little that someone like Sara Palin probably can’t actually define socialism. I doubt McCarthy could define “communism” either. All that matters is that what they are talking about is them. It’s the ones who look different. The ones who talk different. The ones who interfere with the price of doing business. The ones who dare ask pesky questions.  You know, like “why”?

I really don’t think on this much anymore. I used to be a political junkie, but in retrospect it seems only because I was utterly transfixed by the sheer balls of a guy like Dick Cheney, who pissed on the Constitution with the same regularity he collected draft deferements…..and still maintained that anybody who disagreed with him did not love America. It was all a bit like slowing down to a crawl on the highway to inspect an accident. I feel almost guilty for getting sucked into it actually.

Thanfully that nightmare is over, but we seem to be mired in yet another. Just watch the ads. I’ve completely lost faith in the healing powers of politics. If in fact it ever had any. I used to think it mattered. The words. The impassioned plea’s. The pomp of it all. What it could stand for if we were even aware of what Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature.”

But then…Lou Barletta and Abraham Lincoln? In the same profession? It sounds perverse. And you know what? It is.

In a bit…

–tf

In my 20s I used to dabble in drink. Maybe more than dabble actually. I took to it like a whale to water.

I’m not in my 20s anymore….a good thing for my liver. But while I was I had a main watering hole. And I met some extraordinary people during my time there. It’s been said that God loves a drunk. If so this place would have warmed his heart. It was kinda like the bar in the Star Wars movie. Only more colorful.

Tonight I met up with an old friend, who informed me that 2 of my old drinking partners, each of them not too much older than me, are now deceased. I was stunned.

Everybody dies. That’s one of the indisputably shitty things about life. But when people you used to drink with start dropping dead before they’re old enough to retire, that can ruin your day. I know it ruined mine.

Both were raging alcoholics and incredibly sweet-natured people. One drank at least a case of Genesee a day, the other was infamous for saying to bartenders….”when midnight comes, no matter what I say, don’t give me whiskey”. He was a hard guy to resist though. When drunk his neck muscles would hibernate, and he looked like a bobble-head doll sitting at the bar. That is, when his face wasn’t planted in it.

Think about a case of Genesee a day. The stuff is vile. Like drinking someone else’s urine that’s been preserved in a third person’s bladder. The wonder isn’t that the guy died. It’s that he lived as long as he did. But he was also the softest touch you can imagine….befriending every cast-off who ever walked in the place….from dwarfs who carried guns to a motley assortment of ghastly strippers, most of whom had teeth you could count on one hand. I knew he was sick. He was always sick. Guys who drink more than 20 bottles of  Genesee beer a day have no immune system to speak of. But still. To hear that he’s dead? He’s been dead 7 years. I never knew. I feel terrible for not knowing.

The other? Died in his bed apparently. Heart just gave out, no doubt prompted by a liver the size of a grapefruit. Many’s the night we’d talk until the english language became impossible for him. One night he drove home (he lived only a few block away) and managed to hit 5 parked cars. When told about it the next day he said, “only five?”

I miss him. I miss them both. Neither ever married. Or had kids. Probably just as well. One lived with his Mom. I never knew where the other lived because he always seemed to be at the bar. He may have slept on the floor. There was plenty of room. One night two brothers started to beat the shit out of each other and one ended up throwing the other through the ladies room door. For the next 6 months if a girl was modest she posted a sentry and used the men’s room.

It was the kind of place where eyes twinkled from dreams….even though those dreams were unfulfilled. It was the kind of place where everybody knew your name. It was the kind of place you could fall into like a comfortable chair. It was dark and smelly and the stools were held together with duct tape. It was also the kind of place you had to get out of if you didn’t want to die young….but that’s not what I remember.

I wish I didn’t hear what I heard tonight. I wish I thought they were still there.

In a bit…

–tf

….in case you couldn’t tell. Little bit at a time. Eventually I’ll have the entire catalog….er…catalogued.

In a bit..

–tf

What the world needs is more guitars. And more obnoxious twits to play them.

More volume. More riffs. More attitude. More swagger. More angels off-stage and devils on it. More strings to snap and amps to blow and knobs to twiddle. More neighbors who will put up with the noise coming from the garage across the street. More crafting the new and bludgeoning the old (but with reverence). Less judging and more dancing. More 25 year old vans filled with duct-taped equipment and empty beer cans and pillows and 20 somethings willing to play for the adrenaline and gas money and the possibility that girls might finally notice that acne mysteriously disappears when a kid learns 3 chords. We need less people in ties and more people in Doc Martens.

I remember Pete Townshend saying that when he first heard the Pistols and the Clash….he felt that he was too old to participate….but was thrilled to be able to watch. I feel that way. My punk rock days are over. But the squeal of a Gibson SG still makes me feel, if only for the length of the song, young again. There is no sound quite like it. They say Muddy Waters invented electricity. I like that one.

So onward I go….with my acoustic Gibson jumbo, crafting soft laments and trying to tell stories with a hush built in. But I still grasp at new kids with loud guitars. And old kids too.

With enough decibels pointed back at us, we’ll never really get old.

In a bit…

–tf

I just pre-ordered Keith Richards’s upcoming autobiography. I’m not sure why I did this. I think it’s sorta the same thing as slowing down and rubbernecking when you pass a gruesome accident.

Like everybody else I’m amazed Keith is still alive. I’m hoping he has some interesting observations on the subject in his memoir. Someone told me one time that 2 living things would survive a nuclear holocaust. Cockroaches, and Keith Richards. This guy offered to provide scientific evidence but I found that unnecessary.

I as approach the mid of my mid-40s, I’m enjoying more and more reading about other people’s train wrecks. I also just ordered a really cool Angus Young t-shirt. In lieu of my latest revelation, I simply consider it the proper thing to do. Keith is also a big fan of Angus, so you see it all comes ’round.

I haven’t forgotten that I fancy myself a musician as well. I’ve got 10 songs ready to go for my new record, but spent a good part of yesterday re-writing half the lyrics. So actually I don’t have 10 songs ready to go for my new record. But I’ve got 10 songs. Someday I’ll get up the courage to record and release them. Or maybe I’ll just put them in a drawer and write all new tunes. I can’t decide. Never tried what I’m trying now. Don’t want to be bad at it. That would besmirch a memory.

I need a new website too. Gonna get one eventually.

Weather is cold. Rainy. Overcast. What I’ve been waiting for all these long months. It’s so nice to be back in the midst of fall. The leaves are beginning to explode. At night you can see the breaths you’re taking. Lets you know you’re alive. Now if the grass would only stop growing.

This weekend is the Alzheimer’s Association Memory Walk. Gonna shuffle the 2 miles in honor of my father. Drop a few coins in the bucket if you can. Let’s beat this fucking bastard of a disease.

In a bit…

–tf

I must come clean. I’ve been in the closet (so to speak) since pre-high school. As difficult as it is to comprehend, a fan of Nick Drake and the Weepies can share the same brain with someone who thinks Angus Young is a genius.

It’s true. I’ve secretly devoured AD/DC for years. Even since I plucked “Let There Be Rock” and “Highway to Hell” out of the stack of my older sister’s records. I was appalled and fascinated. It was like somebody driving a screw-driver into my head. As a young teen who played a mean air-guitar, it was also irresistible. But I didn’t want anybody to know. AC/DC fans were freaks. They all looked like the members of AC/DC. I looked like an altar-boy. I was an altar-boy. My irish catholic guilt went into overdrive. I was pretty certain Jesus didn’t want me to listen to a guitarist who wore devil horns on his head.

But sorry Jesus. I heard “Whole Lotta Rosie” and I thought I could fly. That riff. I’ve never been on speed, but I suspect the feeling is somehow comparable. It just sounded so raw and nasty. If Tipper Gore could put a warning sticker on a guitar riff, this is one she’d pick (at the time I had no idea the song was about banging a fat chick).

Who were these guys? Well it turned out the singer was dead. Choked on his own vomit, which somehow seemed appropriate. The ultimate rock and roll way out. So that was that. I’d arrived late to the party. That much was clear.

And then “Back in Black”. With a new singer who sounded like his larynx was being shredded by a power-tool. Other than him, not much had changed. They still sang about hell and sex, using dick metaphors so juvenile that even I winced. But I got over that quick. Dick references were ok. After all, it’s a free country. And AC/DC never claimed to be Dylan heirs anyway. If they weren’t singing about hell or a penis, the song had “rock and roll” in the title. The guitar riffs were insanely catchy (and, as I was to discover later, insanely simple too). The drummer never ever played a fill. He just laid down a crushing beat like an crazy man banging his head against the wall in an asylum. And the band never recorded a ballad. And I mean never. These guys were scary. Led by a 5 foot 2 inch 110 pound guitar player who seemed invented purely to test a human’s reaction to different sets of drugs. His brother stood in the back covered with hair. He looked like a wild animal in a zoo. Heavy stuff this.

“Back in Black” was everywhere. I had a crush on a girl in 8th grade and needed to get her a birthday present. I bought her the cassette. I thought I was in. Turns out she already had the album. I should have known. So went my love life in those days.

I was learning that you weren’t supposed to like this band (to this day nobody who owns “Back in Black” will admit to it until you find it under the seat in their car and confront them directly with the evidence).  Critics hated (and hate) them. AC/DC were (and are….you get the tense idea) puerile. They were misogynistic. Lyrically they hadn’t progressed much beyond the stuff scrawled on bathroom walls. And every record they released sounded like the last one.

What the critics didn’t understand is that we loved the last one (AC/DC would not appear on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine until 2008, by the way). AC/DC had no “disco” song. No power ballad. No nod to punk in a bid for street cred. No synthesizers. No orchestra wailing behind them. And they sure as shit never did anything “unplugged”. They weren’t always great, but they were never truly bad. Not many can say that.

Still, we pretend to grow up don’t we? Our tastes “mature”. I suppose nothing but really really loud rock and roll boogie is not a completely healthy diet. Maybe like living on beer with chips and doritos. So Angus and his boys were shoved to the side to make room for more respected fare. Less singing about male organs and such. More political things (ever wonder why AC/DC weren’t invited to Live Aid or Live 8?). I don’t think Angus ever gave a shit. He always had a fresh batch of 12 year olds combing through their sister’s CD collection.

And he probably knew we’d be back.

A final thought….and I don’t know why I can’t let this go but I just can’t. I’m not big on the Armageddon thing. But a few years back I saw Celine Dion on an awards show singing “You Shook Me All Night Long” and attempting to do the Angus duck-walk. It was positively treasonous. I was afraid Angus might see it and decide to kill himself. For days I scanned the paper fearing the inevitable. Then I thought…..surely what I saw on national television was the mark of the beast. Lucifer himself. Or herself in this case. I’ve needed medication ever since. I’m not convinced totally that the end is not near. But at least I’ve got “Let There Be Rock” to keep me company until then.

In a bit…

–tf

It’s almost October. I go outside in a t-shirt and still sweat. This is not right. The longest summer of my life refuses to go gently into that good night. About the only thing that feels like fall is Notre Dame losing 3 of their first 4 games. So much for the Coach Kelly era. He may be gone before I ever figure out why his team is wearing red caps on the sidelines.

I’m pulling for Boise State. Rooting for Alabama or Ohio State is like rooting for Wall Street. My prediction is that both teams lose a game at least. No way Bama makes it through the SEC unscathed. They should have lost to Arkansas on Saturday but the Hogs appeared to have one of those “we’re winning but we’re not good enough to beat Alabama” moments in the 3rd quarter and started to shit all over themselves. And Ohio State has some brutal conference games upcoming. Boise just has to stay sober to make it to the BCS title game. My gut is telling me it’s gonna be Boise St and Nebraska at the end, with TCU being the inevitable non BCS team un-defeated but locked out.

Notre Dame, on the other hand, will be lucky to win 4 games.  Aside from having no defense, no running game, and a none too bright quarterback who spends much of his time running for his life, they appear razor-sharp. They also have a decent punter who gets tons of game time. Brian Kelly is making Charlie Weis look like Vince Lombardi. Here’s the thing. If your dream is to coach at Notre Dame, take a handful of sleeping pills and go back to bed.

On the pro side, my Steelers are proving you can win in the NFL with Betty White as your quarterback if you can run the ball and have a perpetually pissed-off defense (A freak like Troy Polamalu doesn’t hurt either. He’s like having a plumber living in your basement). Ben Roethlisberger is due back in two weeks if he can lay off the co-eds. It’ll be interesting to see what type of reception he gets. Personally, I think NFL fans would accept Bernie Madoff as their team’s quarterback if he could avoid red-zone interceptions. If Roethlisberger wins, the fact that he’s a probable rapist won’t matter. If the Steelers start to lose, everybody’s gonna suddenly find their inner moral indignation.

Thank the flying spaghetti monster for football. It’s one of the few things that always chases away the blues (as long as you’re smart enough to not be a NY Giants fan). As I type this the Bears and the Packers are locked in a 17-17 tie late in the 4th quarter, which is exactly how a Bears/Packers game is supposed to play itself out. A great end to a great weekend of football.

And the baseball playoffs commence in 2 weeks, which is the only time of the year I can watch baseball. So the hours logged on the couch should rise exponentially over the next month.

Now, in between snaps I have a record to record.

In a bit…

–tf

My father was killed by Alzheimer’s Disease. I say “killed” other than “died from” quite deliberately. I consider Alzheimer’s a killer. If the devil exists he or she or whatever it is surely slithers around in the guise of Dementia. Fully 1% of the world’s Gross Domestic Product is eaten by Alzheimer’s. That’s $604 billion. And ironically, as medical breakthroughs allow us to live longer, Alzheimer’s gets worse. At age 85 a person has a 50% chance of getting it. It’s always been with us. We’ve just normally not lived long enough for suffer its wrath.

Alzheimer’s killed my father twice. It took away his memories before it stopped his heart. And before it stopped his heart it surely broke it as well. Surrounded by family, he was still alone. Scared. Confused. Anxious. Furious. Oblivious to his surroundings sometimes, and all too aware of them at others. We could do nothing except hold his hand and whisper that everything was going to be alright. In other words, we could do nothing but lie. So we lashed out. At each other. At caregivers. At doctors. At complete strangers. The last few month’s of my father’s life was not a time to cut any of us off in traffic.

There came a time when my Mother could not care for him at home anymore. I still remember that night. The night after the Super Bowl it was. We pretended when we left the house that we’d all be back. But all of us knew. Except my father. He didn’t know his own house anymore. He wanted to go “home”. I promised to take him. He believed me. He knew the Saints had won the game the night before, so he grabbed a New Orleans ball cap before we left. We went to the hospital, where eventually he needed to be tranquilized so he wouldn’t keep getting up, putting on his jacket, and wanting to go home. Me and my Mom stayed with him until the wee hours. I sat on the floor and a few times caught myself dozing. My mother sat on a stiff backed chair and never once closed her eyes. 

Pop never slept in his own bed again.

For me and my mother, it was, at the time, the worst and longest night of our lives.

From the hospital we went ping-ponging back and forth….to a managed care facility, then back to the ER, then to a specialized care unit, then back to managed care. It was bewildering and exhausting for us. Thinking about what it did to him still keeps me up nights. Eventually, you hit a care-wall. There’s nothing even the most well-intentioned care giver can do except ease pain. And allow what’s going to happen to happen in relative peace.

My father was in hospice when he died. He felt no pain. While there he was treated with dignity and respect. There was no cure for his affliction, so we were watching him die. We wanted death to come to ease his pain, but wanted life to stay to ease ours. His last few hours will never be erased from my memory.

Unless of course I too succumb to this disease.

How horrific is it to live in a world full of strangers? Of fear? Or incomprehension? Like a child abandoned. That’s how it must feel. And to know, before the curtains are drawn completely, what your fate is to be. It is every bit as awful as Cancer. Which is why Alzheimer’s Disease is now the 2nd most dreaded affliction in America….redeemed only by it’s inability to kill a child. Cancer is still the undisputed king. But in time? Who can tell? A cure may be found for cancer. But can we cure getting old?

None of us have not been affected by one or the other. Most have known both. Yet still I hear dismay in the voice of others when I speak of my lack of faith. Like I am somehow letting them down.

I feel let down. In a world where Alzheimer’s and Cancer has become a coin flip, I feel silly on my knees. Like a beggar in a city full of rich, obnoxious assholes.

In a bit…

–tf

Brand new song. Still tinkering with it, and plan on adding another verse and a mid-section….but I promised my sister I’d post something from the upcoming CD

It’s called “Leaving Home”

The muse is hard to pin down. Like trying to grab a fist full of water. Or a wisp of air.

When it arrives, we sit hunched over guitars or notepads or keyboards, thinking of lightning in a bottle. It’s been captured, and there’s no way it can get way. And then….

Well, you wake up the next day and suddenly you’re playing the guitar with all the subtlety of a meat cleaver. Your legal pad is filled with games of tic-tac-toe and hangman. And your computer screen is as white as Glenn Beck. What the hell happened? Why am I all of a sudden spending much of my day studying a piece of lint on the floor? Didn’t I used to be good at this shit?

Maybe. And maybe you will be again. But not today. And maybe not tomorrow either. What you could pluck out of thin air has now gone underground, like a guerilla army, and you start checking to make sure you can still spell your own name without pulling out your license.

And so it starts to eat away at your confidence. Maybe I was never that good to begin with. That would certainly make a dry patch like this easier to deal with. I mean, what can one expect? Maybe he was born to be a Salieri with a greying beard and a creeping suspicion he’s become a misanthrope? As Ted Knight put it so succinctly in Caddyshack, “the world needs ditch diggers too.”

But please don’t bury me in the cold cold ground. John Prine said that, and he’s a cancer survivor whose songs have done more for mankind than any politician’s policy’s I can name. And as a cynical political junkie, I can name way too many. Liars. Thieves. Partisan maniacs. Sex fiends. What does it say about the brainpower of a nation that it elects somebody (twice) to be President who believes in the rapture? It says we need a new pack of John Prine songs desperately. Or maybe we need to listen to “Angel From Montgomery” closer. We’re alienated. In our own homes. Fear keeps us in front of the TV with a 6-pack. “How the hell can a person go to work in the morning / come home in the evening / and have nothing to say?” These lines taught me more than all of Shakespeare’s poetic wanking.

But on some nights, that’s me. I’ve got nothing to say. The day sucks the air out of your lungs. Spend 8 or 1o hours doing what you need to do as opposed to what you want to do, and try not to arrive at the dinner table with a chip on your shoulder. A successful life these days is defined as one spending more time with people you largely despise (co-workers if you’re lucky enough to have a job) than with those you genuinely love. Wife. Kids. Your dog. When that mortgage payment comes and you can pay it, you’re officially a boring old fart…..the kind of parent your kids walk 10 paces ahead of at the mall so nobody thinks they actually belong to you. The only time they allow you to catch up is when they need money. Pay up and they like you. Say no and you’re the anti-christ and probably on the hook for untold future therapy bills. Want to talk to your kid? Hope he or she hasn’t de-friended you on facebook. If they did, you’re pretty screwed. It’s like when the astronauts disappear behind the moon. Total communication blackout. Wake up one day and your kid has a tattoo of Che Guevara on their left buttock. Nobody seems surprised but you. So you ask, “a Che tattoo. Interesting. Where’d you get the idea for that?” And they’ll give you that look that says “when did you get so old and uncoll?” But it comes out that one of the latest Disney Poster Boys of the minute showed up at some premiere wearing a Che t-shirt, and now it’s an obligation to show support. And oh by the way I owe her money to pay for it because I’m the father and that’s what father’s do. They pay for Che tattoos.

Course none of this has happened to me yet. Politics for my kids during the last election boiled down to the “African American” (never “black”) vs. the “Old Dude’…..who seemed a lot smarter before he picked his running mate than he became after. It dawned on him that first day that he’d asked a crazy, unintelligent bitch who when trapped one on one with a real journalist kept looking for the nearest fire exit so she wouldn’t be bothered with pesky foreign policy questions that could not be put off by the “I can see Russia from my house:” stock reply. It was an interesting, almost surreal time in which John McCain, for whatever reason, pulled the pin on his last grenade and blew himself back to Arizona and his trophy wife and her vast fortune….never to be heard from again. He suffered the kind of presidential beating that even Fox News couldn’t spin. Obama was president. We rejoiced. It was a miracle. Surely, here it came. Another great society. End the wars. Bring the boys home. If not guns and butter, then butter only. Feed the hungry. Take care of the sick. Take this disparity between rich and poor and start hacking away at it. Things were gonna change.

Except they didn’t. Wall Street took all our retirement and 501k and suddenly we owned nothing but clothes on our back. House. Two cars. All that middle class stuff. We paid the bank and they said as long as we did they wouldn’t huff and puff and blow our house down….which was pretty nice of them since I’d just chipped in giving them a $600 billion dollar bailout. Obama was supposed to rise us up. He was supposed to make us all feel better about ourselves. “Yes we can” and all that shit. Well, “yes we can” if we work for wall street and suddenly have $600 billion extra George Washington’s to spend with no need to provide receipts. But for the rest of us. “no we can’t” afford the mortgage and nobody is offering me a bailout and the sheriff is outside with a piece of paper I’m in no mood to read……and a crowbar.

Barack, I voted for you. I believed you. You let me down. I get lip service for TV sound bytes. But my dreams? What do you know about my dreams? Nothing. You take care of your boys now while the getting is good, and I wonder how I’m going to be able to send my girls to college. I work hard. I do the right things. But I’m priced out, That seems unfair. Worse, it seems Un-american. And people tell me I’m one of the lucky ones. I don’t feel lucky. I feel used.

Being pissed is good for the muse. It can kick start it…..and set up a roadblock to get it back on the right tract. I have these songs. They’re about my father. His life. His Alzheimer’s disease. His battle. His refusal to not rage against the dying of the light. Watching him die was the worst of times. But it was also the best of times, because for the first time I saw what the human spirit is capable of. Hell, Alzheimer’s had it’s claws in my father, but I’m convinced he was aware enough to go on his own terms. He shut down and said….enough. Forget me. My family has suffered enough. I’m going to close my eyes and not wake up anymore.

And so that’s what he did. Some 5 months ago. He never went to work in the morning and came home in the evening and had nothing to say. Not Pop. Alienation is for weaklings. Like me. Pop had too much to do. Too many people to help. No time for this self-pity shit.

I want to be more like him. I want my muse back so I can pay him this compliment in song. A song lasts forever.

That’s what I’ve learned in all this. A song lasts forever. Everything else dies.

So, that should clear this up. My muse? Where are you? I’m waiting.

In a bit…

–tf