Hot for Preacher (3) - Chapter One: I am Born

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them; and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
2 Luke, 8:10, Bartleby.com

Coll: Something's wrong with this baby.
Gib: I'll say: he looks like our sheep!
Coll: Let me see, Gib! (Mak and Jill try to escape)
Daw: I see thieves trying to sneak away!
Gib: That was clever. I've never seen anything like it.
Coll: What a fraud!
Daw: Yes, men, wasn't it? Let's tie her up and bind her fast. A false scold when she's caught hangs at last. Look how they swaddled his four feet in the middle?
I've never seen a horned baby in a cradle before. I know him by his ear-mark. He's ours.
The Wakefield Second Shepherd's Play, a medieval retelling of the Nativity and some other stuff, translation by Karen Saupe.

Paul was a cranky baby. He cried most of the day. Peace only settled on the new house after he went to bed where, exhausted from the trauma of his waking hours, he slept long and soundly. Iris tried all known methods to still the noise coming from the cot. Her sister Ruth would come over to lend a hand. Onagh Byrne, a sympathetic neighbour from two doors along, was also enlisted to help pacify Paul. Norman, who was now a sensible eight-year-old, often walked his young brother around the block to give Iris a break.

David Lee Roth was born on October 10, 1953, in Bloomington, Indiana, where his achievement-oriented father, Nathan, went to medical school.

Iris was sure something was wrong. Nobody would cry like that just for attention. When he was two, Iris took Paul to Dr. Lee Kidney, a noted specialist at Crumlin Children's Hospital.

David was an energetic kid, but he was plagued by allergies and fought with health problems that forced him to wear leg braces from almost the time he could walk until age four. Then he was shipped off to therapy for the better part of a decade. At nine years old, he began three intensive years of clinical treatment for hyperactivity. He had a few healthy outlets--Roth's parents called his dinner-hour routines "Monkey Hour," when he acted out cartoons and sang revved-up vaudeville songs for dinner guests.

Dr. Kidney couldn't find anything wrong with his young patient but suggested he stay in the hospital for a week for observation. The good news, seven days later, was that Paul was healthy and normal.

Everyone else was simply having trouble playing their part in his continuous mental picture show, a fast, animated flipbook of MAD magazine and Playboy.

The bad news was that he was unlikely to stop seeking attention.

...his roots were knotted tightly around the Old World--his grandparents were Ukrainian Jews who traded the mountains and steppes of Eastern Europe for the sweltering cornfields of the Midwest. In fact, all four of his grandparents spoke Russian. "My great-granddaddy died dancing," he later joked with a TV interviewer, "at the end of a rope."

Hot for Preacher (2) - A Brief News Update

Bono Awarded Liberty Medal

U2 frontman Bono has been awarded the Liberty Medal in Philadelphia. The award is given annually and recognises leadership in the pursuit of freedom.

...

After being awarded with the medal, Bono paid tribute to the US, saying: "In the American body politic there's no poetry like the poetry of the Declaration Of Independence and the Constitution.

Actually, I happen to be pretty fond of Casey at the Bat. And there's still bars up in Sitka where a spirited recitation of The Cremation of Sam McGee will set you up with free rounds of Yukon Jack for the night. (Technically, that one's Canadian, but none other than Seamus Heaney has cited it as a childhood favorite.)

Speaking of Canada:

Hail to Van Halen

Van Halen's two-hour-and-10-minute performance kicked off with a triple-shot of great classic rock -- their cover of The Kinks' You Really Got Me, I'm the One, which the band stopped mid-song to rapturous applause -- "It only took us 20 years to get this far," said Roth -- and Runnin' With the Devil.

In between, there were such classics -- all from the Roth-fronted years of 1978-84 -- as Romeo Delight, Beautiful Girls, Dance the Night Away, Everybody Wants Some, their cover of Roy Orbison's Pretty Woman, I'll Wait, And the Cradle Will Rock, Hot For Teacher, Little Guitars, Jamie's Cryin', Panama, and Ain't Talkin' Bout Love.

Truthfully, it was hard to maintain the energy of that trio of opening songs, but the band definitely aimed to please with a hits-heavy set list and backed by impressive green laser lights, an enormous video backdrop and confetti raining down on the audience by the very end.

"I can't tell you all how excited we are to be here tonight," said Roth.

By the way. It's 'brown' M&Ms. The green ones were valued at my high school for their supposed aphrodisiacal qualities, which probably led to my confusion. And, having read to that point in the story, I've learned that the brown M&M clause was a cold and calculated business trick, further encouraging my growing respect from the little old rockers from Pasadena.

Hot for Preacher (1) -- Mano a Mano con Bono

Ever since Grace Cathedral ruined my grand finale¹ for last December's email carol of The Twelve Days of Bono, I've felt that there's been some unfinished business betwixt myself and Mr. Hewson.

I knew that I needed something new to focus my somewhat unexamined, but always emailed, feelings for the man and the band who continue to haunt my life in strange and unexpected ways. (Most recently by very nearly providing Hillary Clinton with her '08 campaign song.) Maybe even something like that worked like a kind of penance or atonement for all those cheap jokes and unpurchased albums.

And although I hadn't a clue as to what form that it might take, I knew there would be a Sign. A Path. I had Faith that Providence would Provide. (Providence seems to be good at that. Hence, perhaps, that name it's got. 'Providence.') A Way would be made Clear. I would also Need to get my Caps Lock Key FIXEd.

Or I'd just find a really cheap, used copy of Eamon Dunphy's Unforgettable Fire at the record store where I probably bought the bulk of any U2 vinyl I ever owned. And I'd think "Yeah, that'll work. I'll read Unforgettable Fire and write snide rants to my friends who will quietly block my email address and alert the appropriate authorities. It'll be like a book club meeting that goes on and on and there's nothing you can do about it."

Reader, I bought it!

And after a couple depressing thoughts on the twenty year old copyright date, I started in. And there we are, onstage in 1985, at Wembley. It's Live Aid, clearly the greatest stadium concert with [as the book says] "the greatest rock 'n' roll bill of all time." And off we go:

It all hung on Bono. At moments of acute need like this it was as if he was the vessel into which all their fears and hopes, ideas and emotions dissolved. In him and through him the pool of accumulated sadness, joy, anger and yearning swelled and began to flow -- from Edge's guitar, through Larry's drums and Adam's bass the music gathered force, bursting out through Bono whose task it was to give it words, meaning, substance on a day like this. He was the medium for their message. When Bono prayed that day, as he always did backstage, he asked for strength...

Right there. That's when the needle scratched across the vinyl of my attention span. Praying backstage. At a ROCK concert? And am I the first to catch that "through him, with him, in him" echo in the second sentence? Yet I keep reading. A page later, we have Bob Geldof and Paul McGuinness crying like reunited brothers in each others' arms.

Oh dear. It's going to be a looooong book.

I understand atonement and all, but shouldn't a rock-n-roll biography have something a little more ...ah...carnal about it? Like underage blonds in hotel suites, roadies with bicycle chain belts and tattoos, mirrors and razors, M&Ms painstakingly sorted by flunkies backstage, wads of under-the-table cash exchanging hands, suits from the record label harshing the buzz...all that sort of thing? At the least, a certain snarky, smart-ass tone capturing the hustle and balls of it all?

For example, here in Ian Christie's new book Everybody Wants Some: The Van Halen Saga, published by Wiley. (Oh yes it is!) Does the legend of Eddie, Alex, Michael and Dave start with prayers and hugs? Let's take a look:

Like the stories of other great Americans from Henry Ford to Walt Disney to Fievel the Mouse, the saga of Van Halen begins in an ancient land, far from the United States and its constant supply of hot water and electricity. As a narrator would say in the old movies: Among the windmills, tulips, and wooden shoes of lovely Amsterdam, Holland, there lived a kindly musician named Jan van Halen.

Now that's not too bad on the snark-o-meter, but to be fair and balanced we need to give it a full page of text as we did for the other. And so to:

As they traveled all around Holland and sometimes across the border to Germany, the boys saw the practical aspects of a musical career firsthand, and on some of the more rustic and ribald nights they discovered the perks--Alex reported losing his virginity at age nine after one of his dad's gigs.

Hot DAMN! You can almost hear that clicking sound of green M&Ms being sorted now.

And so I've decided that I will read BOTH books. At once. As in together. Randomly. Flipping from one to the other whenever the mood strikes. Confusing names, places, venues, genres until I forget whether it's Bono or Alex who trips over a cable and twists his ankle at the Anaheim Stadium in '78. Whether its Paul McGuinness or David Lee Roth who gets sent down from Trinity College, Dublin. It's a Lit-Crit Mash-up! Prayers AND M&Ms backstage! Let there be ROCK!

I am running a little bit hot tonight, now that you mention it. I can barely see the road from the heat coming off. So I reach down between my legs and I still haven't found what I'm looking for...

^1. How did they get wind that I was planning to attend the much vaunted U2charist with two of the City's leading members of the leather community and a young, brash, rising star in the drag performance firmament, that's what I want to know.

"English guys are not beyond two girls at a time."

One of my prized pieces of vintage trash is a little paperback entitled "Groupies and Other Girls: A Rolling Stone Special Report" from 1970.



Absolutely loaded with primary source interviews, including this little segment on international relations from "Sunshine":

English guys are not beyond two girls at a time. They're not beyond anything they might want to try. American guys are very conservative. An Englishman at 19 is as mature as an American at 26--or 27. I thinks [sic] that's because most Englishmen are broken in by older women. They don't fumble into it, they learn it right. They're gentle, never pushy. Englishmen, a lot of them are bisexual. They're not hung up. I know a lot of them who have slept with men to see what it was like. American men are constantly trying to prove their virility. They won't wear lace shirts or anything like that. They don't realize that there isn't a woman in the world who can't be had by a man who know he's a man. A woman is only as good as the man she's with.

Much more of the same and some names are named. (Rod Stewart! Who would have thought!?!) All of it edited [with the one free hand?] by the guy who wants to keep the Monkees out of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Classy.

Now it is true, in '70, that the flavors of the rock 'n' roll lollipop were predominately American and English. Makes me wonder what sort of backstage compare/contrast reputation was earned in the hands of these ladies a mere decade later by Bono and the boys?

"Where the Seats Have No Name"

Ancient Gaelic on the walls and perfume in the ladies’ room
Dark wood tables, each brought over
Piece by piece from Boru’s tomb
Bridgid brings a round of Smithwick’s plus a Power’s on the rocks
Raven tresses though her sister sports the wild fiery locks

(chorus):
Pints in glasses, raise a din
They never shoulda let us in
We’re all wicked liquored up at the upscale downtown Irish pub



Shortly after New Year’s Eve, I was walking around O’Farrell and Cyril Magnin and happened to notice that Johnny Foley’s was closed for seismic retro-fitting. A quick count of weeks to mid-March told me this would either be [a] the fastest seismic retrofitting in town which means someone had an inside track with the Building Permit Department – not a far stretch, really - and dust would fly or [b] Johnny Foley’s was perhaps not to return.

But Johnny Foley’s returned to great fanfare in the California Irish Herald and the local grapevine. And in time for the big day.

A week or so after the last green plastic cup was carted off to the local landfill, I stopped by to say 'hello' to the good folks I used to see on a regular basis until the hamburgers jumped to $9.95 and they started charging extra for the bleu cheese.

Marie met me at the door and showed off the remodel with proprietorial pride. She made me list all the improvements I could see, without telling me first.

Me: New wallpaper, I see that right off, and it’s beautiful. I love that color. New art nouveau sconces, nice! And new taps…that’s a lot of brass there! Okay, what else? Those stairs to the cellar, that’s a whole partition now. And the bookcase over there, well that’s gone. And – hey! -- the ‘Hippies Use the Side Door’ sign, that’s gone too!
Marie: And so’s the side door.
Me: I can see that! But I liked that sign!
Marie: It’s over here, by the bathrooms. And we’ve got new pictures up by there too.
Me: Fidel Castro with a bottle of Powers. Cool.
Marie: What else do you see?
Me: The whole bathroom layout is different, obviously, no more payphones here and the coat rack is gone. And…oh my god!
Marie: What?
Me: That’s a stunning portrait of Bono you got there!

One week later, I had Mssrs Pachinko & Hoover down to see this. Their reaction was near to mine. We hadn’t planned on staying for a meal, but the new waitress mistook our interest and seated us right at this most august of tables.



(Joe Pachinko, San Francisco poet. Photographer: Miss Templeton)

I tried to convince my friends of the significance of this addition to the time-honored, tradition bound iconography of the joints I had known most of my life. "Look," I said. "This puts the man in a whole new realm. This is beyond lunch with the President of the United States or meeting the Pope or being in a video with Sting. Love him or don’t, we now have to give Bono the respect of someone who is Up on the Wall of a Pub."

Although my lunch mates were dubious, I warmed to the theme. "First of all, almost everyone else in a gilded frame in this room is dead. And not of old age either. And with Bono, we are clearly beyond the categories of politics, literature, and sport."

"Maybe he fits under 'literature' as a writer. A songwriter." Hoover offered.

We gave that some thought as we ordered another round.

"Perhaps," I said. "But it is still new ground. Songwriting as poetry? It’s a pretty bold step forward! Why, next there will be women on the wall!"

My companions hugged their glasses close and inched away, cringing against the lightening sure to strike me at this blasphemy.* But the moment of danger passed.

"No," I said. "This is historic. This is the dawn of a new era in pub décor."



It’s a new phenomenon, one for a new millennium
Sippin’ in a classy joint and not a dive just like some bum
This is grand, we’re well-behaved with voices at a decent pitch
Mind your language and the doorman, he’s a big son of a bitch!

Pints in glasses, raise a din
They never shoulda let us in
We’re all wicked liquored up at the upscale downtown Irish pub




*EXTRACT from DO THE RIGHT FECKIN’ THING, Draft of Spike Lee’s 1989 film with Jennifer Connolly as Buggin’ Out, Aidan Quinn as Brian, and Martin Sheen as Mike. Script was subsequently re-written for a different cast.

ANGLE--PUB
________________________________BUGGIN' OUT
-------------------------Mike, how come you ain't got no
-------------------------sisters up on the wall here?

_________________________ ______MIKE
-------------------------You want sisters up on the Wall
-------------------------of Fame, you open up your own
-------------------------business, then you can do what you wanna
-------------------------do. My Irish bar, men up on the wall.
____________________________________________________________________15.

_______________________________BRIAN
-------------------------Take it easy, Mike.

_______________________________MIKE
-------------------------Don't start on me today.

_______________________________BUGGIN' OUT
-------------------------Mike, that might be fine, you own
-------------------------this, but not only do I see men
-------------------------eating in here, I see women.
-------------------------So since we spend much money
.........................here, we do have some say.

_______________________________MIKE
-------------------- You a troublemaker?

Brian walks over to Buggin' Out.

_______________________________BRIAN
--------------------You making trouble.

_______________________________BUGGIN' OUT
--------------------Put some sisters up on this Wall
------------------______-of Fame. We want Mother Jones,
-----------------_____---Maureen O’Sullivan, Rosie O’Donnell
-------------------------tomorrow.