It’s a very Irish sort of day here in The Duck! City, gray and gloomy with a steady drizzle, just the ticket for observing the departure of Shane MacGowan.
He was just 65. But as Jerry Jeff Walker is reputed to have said to an elder, “You’re older than I am, but I’ve been up more hours.” By that reckoning MacGowan may have rivaled Mel Brooks’s 2,000-Year-old Man.
I have the two classic Pogues albums, “Rum Sodomy & the Lash,” produced by Elvis Costello, and “If I Should Fall From Grace With God.”
Every Christmas Eve Herself and I dance in the living room to “Fairytale of New York.” I have never been moved to dance to one of Henry Kissinger’s bleak, self-aggrandizing dirges.
However, I’m happy to let the late chef and author Anthony Bourdain dance a whipsong on Kissinger’s grave. Here’s a passage from his 2001 book “A Cook’s Tour,” forwarded by Hal Walter:
“Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands. You will never again be able to open a newspaper and read about that treacherous, prevaricating, murderous scumbag sitting down for a nice chat with Charlie Rose or attending some black-tie affair for a new glossy magazine without choking. Witness what Henry did in Cambodia—the fruits of his genius for statesmanship—and you will never understand why he’s not sitting in the dock at The Hague next to Milošević. While Henry continues to nibble nori rolls and remaki at A-list parties, Cambodia, the neutral nation he secretly and illegally bombed, invaded, undermined, and then threw to the dogs, is still trying to raise itself up on its one remaining leg.”
For more of that sort of eulogy, see the Lawyers, Guns & Money blog. I’d give a pretty to see Zombie Hunter S. Thompson arise from the grave and pick up where Bourdain and LG&M leave off. You may recall HST’s Rolling Stone obit for Richard Nixon.
• Late update: Charles P. Pierce also has a few thoughts, as you might expect.
Mad Blog Media 
Only good thing about H the K—think how he would say ‘the Law of the Seas’
Indeed. And now he can say it to the Devil as he swims around the Lake of Fire.
Group chat with my mom and brothers:
Mom: Who’s Shane MacGowan?
Bro3: Shane MacGowan … he’s the drunk tank on Christmas guy.
Mom: Ok … but in this family, you gotta me more specific. That could be any of you.
Bwah ha ha … an Irish family classic, to be sure.
” … gotta be more specific …”
Mom can be a bit harsh. Only two of the four of us spent a Christmas eve in jail. Granted, one of us spent that night sleeping in his car outside the Elk’s Lodge, and another has “cot at the YMCA” on their bingo card … let’s just say, while we were navigating ages 17 — 30, Hallmark wasn’t making a Home For the Holidays pic based on our lives.
I made the drunk tank for Labor Day weekend once. I was always a Man of the People, as you know. …
I don’t trust anybody who hasn’t spent at least one night in the Graybar Hotel, contemplating their life choices.
Even a one-night stay gives a fella the chance to sorta mull things over a bit.
Kissinger, that’s Doctor Kissinger to the hoi polloi, was a self-righteous and arrogant piece of work who fit right in the beltway crowd. Influence peddler would have been a good job description for him.
What the hell is it with successful musician’s anyway? Never happy, heh?
PS: In 1970, I was in Cambodia for a few hours and on the border for 2 days in a special forces camp. The action in Cambodia kept me safer for a while, since we blew up the NVA’s ammunition stores that were there at Rock Island East as we called it. On the other hand, I was probably in Vietnam in the first place because of Kissinger’s advice and counsel. My father was not rich enough to pay a doctor to write a letter giving me imaginary bone spurs.
Pat Oliphant had the sonofabitch’s number back in 1971.
• Click here to embiggen.
Thanks for the link to Pierce. I’d forgotten a lot of those details. The consummate sadistic cynicism of ordering the Xmas bombing of the dikes around Hanoi was enough for me. If he’d actually _had_ a conscience, Henry would have refused that hugely misguided Nobel prize.
It seems Esquire has been paywalled, at least for me. But comments are working fine.
I’ve heard a biblical rumor that Saint Peter has installed a fire pole just for H. Kiss. It seems he thought that a sliding body affected by gravity most emulates an ejected bombing device at altitude, and Lucifer would enjoy a little splatter painting in the lower level oval office.