Peace to Shane MacGowan and Kirsty McColl. And sláinte to Shane’s old bandmates, as The Pogues reunited to sing “The Parting Glass” at his funeral.
Tag: Shane MacGowan
Chew on this
December is National Fruitcake Month, which should surprise exactly no one paying attention to the shenanigans in the nation’s capital.
But let’s not go there, hey? Whaddaya say? Tom Nichols at The Atlantic has posited that our latest Long National Nightmare will not be at an end for the better part of quite some time. It is a marathon, not a sprint, says Tom.
So let’s just jog gently along for a bit, as though we were trying to sweat out the whiskey from a long night of debauchery and hoping to forget (or perhaps remember) all the stupid shit we did while in our cups.
December always feels like an ending to me. Or perhaps the beginning of the end. Rarely am I in a celebratory state of mind.
For instance, this December I will enjoy not one, but two visits to the dentist. The first, yesterday, was for a routine cleaning; the other will be for replacement of a couple fillings that date back to my tenure as a union copy editor at The Pueblo Chieftain, 40 years ago.
“I don’t have the truck I was driving then, so I guess it’s time to get rid of these old fillings,” I quipped as the dentist Indiana Jones’d his way around the archaeology of my piehole.
“Mmm hmm,” he replied, no doubt thinking of his RV payment. “Keep up that home care.”
I was already the Mad Dog in 1984, but it would be seven years, a couple extended stretches of unemployment, and two more newspapers before I finally hopped the rickety fence of unsteady employment and went kyoodling after the bicycles, full speed ahead, damn the health insurance, sick leave, and dentistry.
Fortunate I am to have escaped the dental fate that befell Shane MacGowan. ’Tis a wonder that I have teefers to fill at all so.
Can’t make it all alone
Not even Shane MacGowan could. So don’t you lot even try. Someone’s built their dreams around ye. And a Merry Christmas to all of yis.
I have good news and bad news
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.
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