The Story

St. Patrick’s Day arrives next Thursday, March 17th.  It’s a day overloaded with memories for me, as my father is a professional  Irish-American of sorts.  He once had a beautiful  tenor voice,  loved a political harangue, and lost many of his teeth in both planned and impromptu boxing matches.   Alas, he’s 84 now,  suffers from dementia,  and thus isn’t quite sure who I am anymore. 

Among my fondest memories of Saint Pat's are dad’s green satin suit, the drink and the blather:

"It's not the truth, it's the story."

Well he knew his pint, and of the Irishmen (and wannabes) who make arses of themselves on the important day. What was a somewhat solemn occasion in Ireland has become National Alcoholic Achievement Day in America.  Dad had explained it this way: "In Ireland, a bottle of whiskey cost a month's wages.  In America, a day's wages."  

Here’s a song I wrote in tribute to his legacy. It’s a 1-4-5 type of song, but you can throw in the relative minor to make it more ballad-like if you prefer.

 

Caveman

An I.Q. that’s good for golfing

is a very happy lad

You should see him on a pub crawl

half sodden and half mad

You can fiddlefuck and argue

if it’s human or it’s beast

But even all the nitwits say

he’s quite a touchy piece

He’ll thrash the sweet bejesus

out of those who cross his will

Take you out with the rubbish

or eat you as a meal

There’s no sense making chatter

with a caveman of this sort

You’d best make fancy footwork

for the nearest door

No girl would fancy marriage

because he drools while making sweet

And with such a large appendage

he can barely take a seat

Jesus, Mary, Joseph and

the panoply of saints

I confess to you that I’ve

never seen a harder case

Testosterone’s a good thing,

it gives us girls and boys

But too much of a good thing

is Satan’s grandest ploy

La la la la
La la la la
Tra la la la
Caveman

© 2008 Tom Hamill

 

Fleshibitionists

As we approach Mardi Gras (which falls on March 8 this year), I recall my only direct experience of the definitive New Orleans celebration.  The year was 1976, and I was 16 years old.  My parents and I (I'm an only child) had just returned from over 5 years living in The Philippines, where my father worked as a maritime engineer. I was attending St. Stanislaus Academy in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, which was about an hour's drive from The Crescent City.  St. Stanislaus, which had been built on waterfront property, had been wiped out by Hurricane Camille (1969) and subsequently rebuilt. (After Hurricane Katrina demolished it once again in 2005, the Roman Catholic Church surrendered to nature).   My father received an invitation from a NASA rocket scientist (literally) to attend a party at a hotel room in The French Quarter.

So we drove the family LTD (for those of your remember the Ford model, it was a cheap answer to the Cadillac monsters of the day , and contained a V8 engine that delivered 15 mpg at 55 mph on a perfectly flat freeway) to New Orleans, where we found an almost non-navigable path to the hotel garage.  On the way, we witnessed the traditional and customary "monkey shines" of Mardi Gras.  But the most precious moment came when a young man, thoroughly intoxicated, stripped right in front of our car, and started to give my parents a nudie show. My mother, who had maintained shrines to The Blessed Virgin at all the homes we had lived in, emitted an expression of shock and closed her eyes.  My father said something "wise" in his Queens English (note the lack of an apostrophe).  It was a seminal moment for me, one that would inspire me later in life.

We now advance to 1988 in San Francisco, where I was a member of a dadapunk opera band called The Outpatients.  The occasion was one of the National Poetry Week performance nights at the Fort Mason complex.  We were set to accompany the Frank Moore Dance Troupe.  Frank himself did not dance; indeed, he did not walk.  He had been confined to a wheelchair for most of his life by Cerebral Palsy.  In the room adjoining the performance space there was an on-going cocktail party.  Every member of the troupe (save Mr. Moore) was completely naked, and exchanged niceties with the clothed, while indulging in white wine and crudité.  Andrei Codrescu, the Romanian-American literary luminary, seemed ponderous, and smoked a number of cigarettes.  When it was our turn to perform, we accompanied the performers with our best neo-juju music.  Some of the dancers wrapped others in large rolls of cellophane while Frank’s wife, Linda Mac, recited poetry.  Frank himself was treated to a nude young lady with a shaved head “rocking” on his lap.  Indeed, the piece was called Rocking and Wrapping.

In 2009, in a wooded valley in California, there was a dilapidated building dedicated to art.  The ground floor was occupied by a gallery, and on the 2nd floor there were 4 studios shared by about a dozen artists.  I found myself in one of them.  Ms. L. papered over the windows while Mr. J, who was the gallery minister of beverages, distributed the chardonnay.  4 students were at their easels ready to start the class. The astrologer next door attempted entry but was told by Ms. L that he would have to pay the model’s fee, and so he declined attending.  5 minutes after the students started drawing, The Gallery Director burst into the studio and snapped “What are you perverts doing in here?”  He soon turned scarlet in the face when he saw me in my natural Spanish model pose: classical guitar on my lap,  tripartite configuration hanging beneath the instrument.  33 years after that Mardi Gras, I was now I the fleshibitionist.