Remembering an Irish hero of Haiti

In this 24/7 news cycle we live in, stories come and go. The entire country showered the folks of Haiti with support after the earthquake January, with artists and musicians raising money for telethons and the like.

When a devastating flood hits Pakistan or a politician gets caught with his pants down, the 24/7 news media turns its attention elsewhere and the Haitian people are forgotten.

This is not the case for Greg Grene, leader of the jig punks that make up The Prodigals. He lost his twin brother in the rubble of the United Nations building there, making the pain and loss a daily reminder of the country that was left in ruins.

“This is something that is not really a ‘coping’ thing -- there is no answer, no solution,” Grene says when asked how his family was coping with the loss. “Everyone is just dealing with it as they can.”

As a tribute, Grene and friends have formed the Andrew Grene Foundation, an organization committed to the rebuilding of Haiti.

“For me the foundation is a way of directing some of the belief in all that Andrew stood for, and admiration and love for all that he was, into something other than solely mourning the passing of a truly remarkable soul,” says Grene.

According to the website andrewgrene.com, donations of as little as $25 cover the cost of teaching one woman to read and write, the first big step to independence and economic mobility in Haiti.

Some of the microfinance loans that the organization will put forth with donations as little as $50 will provide the beginning of a self-enabled road out of poverty.

The Andrew Grene Foundation has taken off globally, with support from the likes of the Irish government and 10-year-olds forgoing birthday presents in favor of donations, with everything in between.

Grene has just returned from Haiti to see how the funds of his foundation are being put to use, and he talked to the Irish Voice about what he saw. Here’s how it went.

What was it like going back there, knowing how much effort both Andrew and now you/the charity is putting into that country?

In terms of Andrew, it was wrenching in the way you would assume; it was also a revelation to see just how much of a legacy of love Andrew had left behind him. Not just his UN colleagues, who were unbelievably supportive and kind, but also Haitians on the ground.

We visited this extraordinary community in Pandiassou, run by a Salesian father, and they were inaugurating their communications room, including their radio station. Radio is obviously hugely important there, among a population who have 50% literacy, and the room was named the Andrew Room. We cut the ribbon with Father Armand, the head of the community.

What do you want readers to know about the people and culture of Haiti?

This is an incredibly complex, difficult terrain, both physically and politically. The one thing to bear in mind, to those who would be impatient, is the extraordinary spirit of the Haitian people.

To put it in context, the average income of the majority of the population is $2 a day. There is 85% unemployment because there simply are no jobs. And yet they spend 45% of their income on education, and in the most remote areas you will see immaculately dressed school children wending their way to school over mud and rock.

To get to the school we are actively supporting, the Ecole Christ Roi, you clamber over a mountain of rocks, which is the ruins of the prior buildings, and ascend to the top of a slope, where there are tents set up, and every child, every book, every desk impeccably in order, as the heat beats down and the wind lifts the tarpaulin. You can see video of this on the Andrew Grene Foundation site, andrewgrene.org. It's something unbelievable.

Times are tough and people are mindful of the pennies, and charities are hurting. I was on the website and was amazed at how many factions came together to contribute. What are some of the worthwhile endeavors you have taken on with this support, and to what do you explain the outpouring of charity to this new charity?

I think that at this point, the outpouring is above all a profound tribute to the greatness of soul of my twin. He was a truly loved individual.

I think that as time goes on, the charity is going to prove itself with what we are doing, and I hope to continue to grow. But the initial donations -- they simply are a gesture of love to my dear hero of a twin.

What have been the most encouraging/discouraging things you've encountered around the re-building of Haiti?

The spirit of the people is by far the encouraging aspect. Discouraging -- the degree to which they are battling vicissitudes of weather, terrain and natural disasters. And the state is to an extent simply overwhelmed. And the donations that come in, where folk hear that other nations have pledged $10 billion, that sounds amazing, indeed.

The problem is that between 10% and 2%, depending on whose estimate you hear, has actually materialized. It can play very well to the folks back home to say we're pledging “x” amount. But there is a certain political game in this, so that if the spokesperson can score the goodwill without actually having to disburse the funds, that's kind of a political double-whammy.

Haiti is rich in words of goodwill, but not in funds.

I completely get the impact Andrew had on your life and your family and cannot begin to imagine the loss you've experienced -- he was so special and one of a kind. Was there anything you learned about your brother in the outpouring of other people's grief? Was there something in that outpouring that you wished Andrew could have seen?

Andrew was such a modest person in some ways. I think I told you before that when he first arrived in Haiti, he had to wear a bullet proof vest and helmet, and the bullets were pinging off his car, and he never told us this. We found out afterwards from a journalist.

In the same way, I simply had no idea exactly how influential he was, and I wonder if he did, if he knew just how much admiration and love he left behind him. From the radio station in Haiti, to the farmer's daughter in Ireland that instead of accepting presents for her 10th birthday instead collected donations from her friends for the Foundation.

I was amazed and moved to hear Matt Damon and Clint Eastwood talk about Andrew's life and work on the Hope for Haiti telethon. How did that come about, and how surreal must that whole experience have been for you?

Totally surreal. I had no idea it was going to happen. I got a text when I was visiting a woman who had babysat Andrew and I in Cavan when we were children. I didn't quite take it whether or not it was for real until seeing it later.

From an artistic perspective, is there anything in your concerts or writing that has been formed as a result of your pain/experiences this year that you care to share?

There is nothing artistic per se that I can share at this time -- it's simply too raw. But what I will say is that the community of musicians and music people has been so, so kind and supportive.

I've had beautiful things made for me, a rosary and a memorial bracelet, and benefit concerts set up totally independently of us, and just an amount of kind words and thoughts that were amazing.

Nervous Bono glad to be back on stage with U2

Veteran Rolling Stone writer David Fricke caught up with Bono two days after U2 opened their European summer tour in Turin, Italy. Bono conducted the interview at his home in Nice, France, discussing getting back onstage after back surgery and U2’s future tour plans.

“I woke up on the morning of the show with a certain anxiety,” he tells Fricke. “I asked, ‘Can I hit those notes? Have I got it inside of me? Have we got what it takes to make this experience one that people will remember for the rest of their lives? Or is it going to be four over-rewarded musicians playing in a football stadium?’

“It's an unusual place to make magic. I was very nervous -- very, very nervous. We had done a rehearsal two nights previous. And I was okay. I got through it. But I'm used to total immersion. I'm not used to the feeling (of restraint) I had. I didn't like it.”

Bono also discussed with Fricke his feelings about the creative triumph and commercial disappointment of No Line on the Horizon, the band’s CD released last year.

“Having listened to it the other day, I can understand that. It's not very accessible, lyrically or musically,” he says.

“I don't know why we needed a record that intense. I like music to be joyous. But you're only in charge of a certain amount of what you're doing.

“So we put out a really difficult record. I would have to admit that. If I was a teenager, it would be like a European movie -- it's art house.”

There is light at the end of the horizon for Bono. He reports that fans are finally embracing the punk rock ethos of "Get On Your Boots,” the first single from Horizon that didn’t exactly set the world on fire.

The band is working on a flurry of songs and projects. By Bono’s estimation, they have enough music for a club record, an ambient collection and another rock album in the works. That doesn’t include the music from the Spider-man musical that is set to hit Broadway later this year.

U2 has debuted two songs on the European tour, "Return of the Sting Ray Guitar" and "Glastonbury."

“There are 25-30 songs,” he reports. “Now we have to decide how we go about releasing them. Do we release them in their groups? Chris Martin (of Coldplay) called me and said, ‘I hear you've got all these albums going. I have a great idea. Why not just pick the best songs from all of them and put them out now?’ And I'm like, ‘Hmm . . . ‘ (strokes his chin).

“By the time we hit America next year that's going to be great. Those people are going to have tickets to a whole new show with new songs. It's going to be very exciting next year.”

I know there are a lot of disappointed folks out there that are still holding onto tickets from the Giants Stadium concert that was cancelled in July. It looks as though we will be rewarded with a spiffy new show in 2011!

Size does matter for Irishmen

In one of those fluke happy accidents in life, I now count my wife’s ex-boyfriend among my closest friends. Phil and I used to eye one another cautiously over the years like the competitors that we were, but that child-like behavior has now passed with age as we have both settled into happy marriages with women far above our station.

We have discovered common traits that include a need to constantly poke fun at people around us that eventually gets turned on one another. Sometimes, when the bartender directs pints our way with the speed of an air traffic controller at JFK during Christmas week, that good-natured ribbing awakens the old rivalry about who might have been better in bed with my missus.

Is there anything more ridiculous than two Irishmen comparing the length of the wand and the magic of the stick with one another, given the bum reputation that our race has in that department? In fact, it is quite acceptable to make fun of the state of the our horizontal challenges even on Broadway; Martin Casella has had successful runs on both sides of the Atlantic with his comedic play called The Irish Curse.

As a service to you, dear reader, I decided to do some research. The burning question is: what size is normal? The answer is that the unit comes in all shapes and sizes and almost all are ‘normal’, according to the Irish Health website. Research on that site has shown that the average length of the erect male penis worldwide is just over five inches (12.8cm). The article goes on to say that “Irish men are not regarded as being any more or less well endowed as our European neighbors.”

During a summer pool party recently, I overheard my wife’s friends discreetly disagree on the subject of Irish size.

“I dated an Irish guy once,” explained a rather drunk and loud woman in the circle. “He was funny as hell, had those sexy blue eyes and the Colin Farrell brogue goin’ for him, the whole nine yards. But then he took off his pants and it looked like an AA battery sticking out of a brillo pad.”

She looked over her shoulder as the women clucked and cackled around her to see if I was a safe distance away (I wasn’t) and in a voice that drunks think is a whisper when it is actually a yell to everyone else, turned to my wife.

“Do you have that problem?”

“No complaints whatsoever,” she said with an easy smile of a cat that ate a canary. I swallowed on a mouthful of Bud Lite Lime, squinting as hard as I could to block a tear. Even if she didn’t mean it, I fell in love with her all over again for defending my honor.

Since five inches is the average, that means half of us will have a longer one than average when erect and half will have ones that are shorter than average. I could say that guys like me get theirs to five inches by folding it in half, but I suspect you’d cut through that line of malarkey without even knowing me. The Irish Health web site encourages us to stop “fretting and put that measuring tape away!”

That doesn’t stop the anonymous bloggers on the site from baring their soul of misery anyway.
“I am not very well endowed for a man,” writes one. “A woman can get a padded bra, is there anything to boost my crotch and confidence.Please help.”

Put a sock in it, dude. Literally. Actually, make it two: one is in the mouth to keep you from whining about what God didn't give you and then put one behind the zipper to make you look like you have more going on than you do. As I learned in my college marketing classes, packaging goes a helluva long way to sell something even if the product inside is “short” of expectations.

“Mine is tiny altogether,” writes another. “This is a very awkward problem because I’m good looking enough and so I can get a girl mostly whenever I’m in the mood, but it really affects my confidence because I know I cant go any further with a girl because of how tiny it is. I can’t go to my doc as he’s male and it would kill me.”

I went through a period when I was insecure about mine. It started when I slept over my friend Armando’s house in high school and I got a peek at another man’s enormous equipment for the first time. I normally change names in my writing to protect the innocent but it should be noted that Armando had no problems whatsoever with me mentioning his name in this piece about his piece when I asked his permission. I mean, can you blame him?

Anyway, he worked at a pool club near his home back in 1983 and knew of a hole in the fence that we could sneak through for some night swimming. We called some girls we were interested in at the time and after liberal dosages of peach schnapps and cheap wine, the suggestion was made to go skinny dipping. In seconds, Armando’s swimsuit was a puddle around his ankles and he made his way to the diving board. The bounce of that monstrosity was something I will never forget and I remember feeling horrified and completely emasculated as I watched the tip of his thing pierce the meniscus of the pool's water a full five seconds before his stomach did. I spent the rest of the evening at the edge of the pool and made circles in the water with my feet. Of course, my swim trunks remained on the entire time and my shoulders were slumped as Armando, the girls, and something that resembled the Loch Ness Monster with a back ache splashed carelessly around me for the rest of the evening.

Then there’s that whole myth around hand and foot size being commensurate with “other sizes” that had me perplexed. With a size 9.5 shoe and fingers that look like Gerber’s vienna sausages stitched to a pink pillow of a palm, I thought I was cursed for sure!

I remember starting college the next year and eyeing the communal shower situation with unimaginable dread in the dorm complex. It turns out that the experience of showering with other men proved to be liberating when I discovered that, as the Irish Health study proved, I was in the middle to slightly-upper middle (every inch counts) of the pack when I dared take a peek.

I’m not sure if I am plagued with an Irish curse, but I do know I can brag my way out of any situation with a bit of blarney around my wife's ex at the pub--and that is an Irish blessing!

How Olivia Newton-John ruined my dating life

"Are you turned on by women hurtling small appliances at your head in a fit of passion? If you answered yes, click somewhere else, because this mama is not into the drama. SWF, 44, likes her men likes she likes her wine: smooth, complex, dark, and flowing with a robust red passion.

“I can see the inner beauty in any man but you must either be in possession of your own teeth or a reasonable facsimile. If you have a Member’s Only jacket or a pair of parachute pants in your closet, click somewhere else. Long walks on the beach are nice but if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather sit on the couch with a box of Domino’s pizza balanced on my knees while you crack open a can of Mountain Dew. "

Another day, another friend knocks on the door and asks me to write their online dating profile. She said she wanted a man more in line with NASCAR than Nieman Marcus and within weeks of posting this, she brought around a series of hulking teddy bears (ones with tattoos and a trucker caps, but still!). Though some Manhattan-based matchmakers charge hundreds for the service, I ask for two bottles of good red wine: one for the creative process and one for my personal stash.

I started doing this online profile service as a favor to friends about four years ago. I now have a raging wine cellar that grows like the ass of a newlywed bride who no longer needs to worry about a dress fitting.

Though I am unbelievably fortunate to have married a redhead far above my station, there is a part of me that is deeply resentful in this day and age that my God-given writing talent is a potent tool to attract the opposite sex.

We now live in a world of instant messaging, texts, social networks, and a plethora of other mating tools all rely on clever use of the English language for that special mojo.

Though I am quite sure I could never find anyone that comes close to the caliber of my wife, I fantasize all the time what my dating life would look like if I was unattached right now and using the power of the written word for devious and sexual purposes.

“You’re living vicariously through them, I know it,” sniffs my wife when she catches me asking our friends for every lurid detail of a date caused by my profile. “Here’s another guy that has fallen in love with you,” is the subject of an email from my friend Dawn as she forwards dozens of replies from men who have gotten stuck in a web of lies I have spun for her.

When I was dating, the ability to string sentences together was not exactly an aphrodisiac to the girls I pursued. For that, I can only blame Olivia Newton John.

Allow me to explain.

I came of age around 1977, just as Olivia Newton-John (ONJ for short from now on) was about to rule the universe. She had just launched a 50s bobby-sox revival with her big screen reworking of Grease; I was pretty good at impressing the 7th grade girls with my rendition of “The Hand Jive,” a whimsical dance from the movie that required flexible wrists and fingers.

Just as I was hitting my hand jive stride, the bitch threw me a curve ball a year later with a film called Xanadu that cast her as the goddess that she was. The story required the glossy Aussie to glide on a pair or roller skates, igniting a rolling craze coincided with the first signs of puberty.

For people of a certain age, the roller rink was the place to hang out when you were a teenager, especially when you ran out of quarters to play Asteroids or Ms. Pac man at the local arcade.

The same place that hosted our ice hockey practices in South Amboy in the early morning hours would be transformed into a sleek roller disco by night. The scene was like a school dance, only with wheels and the constant threat of a broken bone or twisted ligament looming above the dry ice smoke.

The suggestive lyrics of Donna Summer might have flown above our heads but the propulsive disco beats hit us squarely in our preteen crotches as we rolled around in a giant circle.

When the tempo slowed, the boys and girls would skate over to their respective corners. The lineup to choose from all had the same look on the female side: soft cashmere v-neck sweaters and puffy shoulder pad added to the cottony allure of glossy lipstick and feathered hair sculpted in ONJ’s image.

Some of the boys would burn off testosterone with slick skates and figure-eights in the middle of the circle, where they would show off brawny moves cultivated during the hockey practices that morning. The jocks naturally had the first pick of the litter before the rest of us swooped in for the spoils.

I tried to compensate for my lack of swagger by wearing the latest styles. Robin Williams was flying high at the time with Mork & Mindy, so I saved enough paper route money to buy the rainbow suspenders he made famous on the show.

They held up a generously sized pair of parachute pants, a tight fitting article of clothing made with the same fabric as the parachute. I remember them making a swishing noise whenever you made the move of putting one foot in front of the other as you skated around the rink. The pants came in the day-glow colors that were fashionable at the time; I believe I wore a pair of bright cherry red trousers that matched the suspenders.

“You look like a pair of right feckin’ eejits altogether,” my dad said with a scowl as he dropped my friend and I at the rink. “You’ll get your ass kicked in there for wearing that nonsense, you mark my words!”

He was only half right. We did look like eejits but we didn’t bring any trouble on ourselves for dressing that way because everyone wore the same thing and looked equally ridiculous.

I would skate by the line and ask one of the girls to join me for a roll on the floor (mind out of the gutter, people). The response was always the same: a grimace of pain followed by a polite “no thanks” that was followed by cackles from the gaggles of friends around her.

It was ias f the girl was mortified that she was giving out the impression that some Casper the Friendly Ghost in parachute pants had a chance with a girl like her. I would skate around the floor, dejected and emasculated, while couples paired off into the dark recesses of the hall.

I do remember one time when I was rewarded by a roll and a kiss. I couldn’t believe my luck when it was suggested that we move to a corner for alone time. We were skating off of the main rink and holding hands when I spilled head first over a discarded soda can. A crowd of pointing and laughing skaters gathered around to watch the spectacle of me getting up and the only thing that got stiff that night was my sprained ankle.

I sometimes wonder how things would have been different if only Olivia had made a movie about the life of James Joyce in the Seventies. In this version of Bloomsday, she would have played a hot-and-bothered Nora Barnacle who could scarcely contain herself around the literary sexiness of a Dublin scribe. Having a sex symbol of that caliber whispering “let’s get physical” into the ear of an Irish writer would have made the whole dating thing a whole lot easier for a shy, insecure kid with a love for words.

Instead, I am reduced to a Cyrano de Bergerac for the cyber-age, helping others say “I honestly love you” to their soul mate with a well constructed online profile.

Irish Catholic cougar looking to prey

Perched atop a rustic bench in the snug of an Irish pub with a full pint at the end of a bent elbow in a tony suburban Orlando neighborhood, I was ready for what I thought might be the toughest writing assignment of my career.

My friend was dealing with a very lonely Irish mother in law and he was hoping to find her someone for the holidays. I was told that she was an extremely devout Catholic woman originally from Offaly who decided to set up shop on dating websites after a daughter and two girlfriends found love online and I was pitched as “the funny New York writer” in town to compose a snappy profile that would attract Mr. Right.

She took a stab at writing about her ideal man and I rolled my eyes when I read in her email about the blessings of her grandchildren and how she was “looking for a man that knows his place on this earth as a servant to our Lord.” Jesus, take the wheel because I had some work to do here!

While I was told she was well preserved and certainly could appreciate the beautiful daughter she created for my friend to marry, I was still expecting Susan Boyle’s older ugly stepsister to walk in the door all the same.

My jaw dropped when I locked eyes with my friend and saw the impossibly curvaceous sixty seven year old woman standing next to him. She had cat-like eyes and a porcelain complexion that lurked beneath luxuriant waves of bleached blonde hair. Her alluring voice was roughed up by cigarettes and the brogue was fighting the good fight against a skuzzy southern drawl.

After composing myself and ordering a round of drinks, I expressed disbelief that she would be seeking companionship. In the course of an hour, the puzzle pieces started to fit.

Like so many of us, a ghost of some frigid grade school nun was screeching in her ear about the sins of the flesh. You know the rap: sex is something not to be enjoyed, certainly not before marriage. After faithfully serving two deceased husbands and raising churchgoing adult children, I’m sure our charitable Maker would look the other way if this good woman rounded the bases of love in her last few innings.

Brides of Christ back in the day may have been excellent public servants and educators, but looking back, one can’t help but think they were trying to stamp out sexuality with the same sensible shoes that stamped out their own. A nun like the one Meryl Streep played in “Doubt” educated me on the birds and the bees, and I still remember how her face looked like she had a rotten wedge of grapefruit in her gob as she described each sin in detail and what menu of punishments waited for us in Beelzebub’s Buffet. To this day I see her in my head with a straw broom every time I have trouble brushing an impure thought away on my own.

I figured if we were going to hell for helping this active senior sin, we might as well have fun this evening, so I ordered myself a whiskey and began with my one-liners.

“Not looking for a man to turn loaves into fishes, but if you can raise the dead in bed, fair play to you!”

She gazed at my friend with a look that said “I told you this wasn’t a good idea.” I fretted with the fringes of my cocktail napkin nervously.

“OK, how about ‘my list for the confessional is boring and I am looking for new sins to fry my friar?” She blessed herself and cackled. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!”

Negotiations ensued that made Hilary Clinton’s Pakistan trip look easy, and soon we were making considerable headway as the evening wore on.

The liquor massaged our cerebellum as we got up and stumbled into the night air, but not before logging onto her account from my Iphone and uploading the following post to her profile page.

Catholic Cougar Looking to Prey

Are you tired of getting disappointed by lovers promising to turn water into wine? Yeah, I know the feeling. Good Irish Catholic woman looking for a reason to stay in bed on a Sunday morning, providing we make it to 5:30 Mass the night before.

Seeking a clean guy older than the Son of God but younger than Abraham. Jesus is my ideal man, but kindly click your mouse somewhere else if you are 33, single, into piercings, and living with a mother who thinks you walk on water. Been there, done that.

I’m not looking for marriage, though it would be nice. I guess I’m just looking to turn a love life of Sorrowful Mysteries into something joyful. Wink if interested.

Who Killed Mike Ward?

You’d know a man like Michael Ward from a mile away. The yellowed shirt had seen whiter days and it was tucked underneath a well worn suit and below a thatch of wiry white hair. Yet his appearance somehow revealed a certain level of bohemian elegance.

He was threadbare, not in an unkempt way, but in a warm and appealing manner akin to the catcher’s mitt that has seen its share of fast balls.

If you let your mind wander, you might make up a story that this elderly Leitrim bachelor moved to America to escape the harsh Irish economy of the Seventies, He got caught between the Ireland that rolled on without him and the adopted city that most of his friends had long since abandoned when things got good again back home.

I have been haunted by the news of Michael Ward’s death. He was mowed down by a hit-and-run driver on the corner of 1st Avenue and 84th Street last Friday, left to die on a grimy Manhattan curb by someone apparently too impatient to wait for an 85-year-old man to cross the street.

I can’t get the image out of my head of this kind soul convulsing in shock on the pavement as the blood poured out of a man who had such a lust for life.

I met Mike only once, at my uncle Bobby Cleary’s funeral last December. With Bob plucking the strings of a banjo and Mike hunched over the squeezebox in the pubs around Bainbridge Avenue, the pair formed a musical conversation in a group called The Limerick Weavers and created a deep friendship that lasted through the decades in the process.

They must have delighted thousands of lonesome Irish with songs over the years and would go on to book regular gigs at places like Gorman’s, The Bainbridge Cafe, Ireland's 32, and Fiona's. I pray some of those fans remember Mike in their prayers this week as a way of saying thanks for providing a slice of home when they needed it most.

When a man of his age lugs a heavy accordion over his shoulder and crosses three state lines to pay a musical tribute to a friend, you don’t need to know much more about the measures of his loyalty and love that are woven into the fabric of his character.

“Good on yeh, girl,” he would probably have grunted as Dawn Mulvihill, Bobby’s devoted partner of 22 years, played heartbreaking airs on the violin near his coffin.

Dawn took the place of Bobby as Mike’s sparring partner during the luncheon that followed my uncle’s burial and I marveled at how Mike, this wee colorful character single-handedly lifted the heavy burden of grief from our family’s shoulders. Inspired by his effervescent spirit, many of us took turns on the microphone or the guitar to participate in the joyous musical conversation that brought Mike and Bobby together in the first place.

“I play the accordion for the old folks in the homes now,” he said, completely oblivious to the fact that he might have been a good deal older than many of the blue-haired residents in his audience.

He had no sense of his own mortality at all when he strapped on the accordion as the years melted from his small frame. When I mentioned I would be writing about this day in my Irish Voice column, he beamed.

“Yerra, someone had to die for me to get my name in lights, and sure, that’s the sad state of affairs for yeh.” With that said he threw back his head and let out a tight laugh, but not before reminding me that his name was spelled with no “E” at the end of it.

You want to believe that the hit-and-run driver kept going because he or she may not have even known they hit something.

“I heard a noise and went to look out the winow and I saw an old guy fall down to the floor,” said witness Oswado Xique.

“I’m not surprised,” said witness Fredda Stimell. “Sometimes the lights aren’t long enough for elderly people to walk across and some of the drivers are not very careful.”

It might have been a pothole that made that loud thump and in this frantic time we live in, the driver’s eyes might have been on some mobile device instead of on the road where they belonged.

You don’t want to believe that the person behind the wheel of the gold Nissan Maxima decided to carry on that night, discarding this kind soul onto the curb like an empty soda bottle. I didn’t know the man well, but I know he deserved a more dignified end to his life than what was doled out.

I’m told this eccentric character Mike Ward was a doorman for decades and I can’t think of a better person to greet you when you got home after a long day at the office.

He, no doubt, would delight the residents of the building he guarded with a song from his encyclopedic knowledge of Irish music or a story about the auld sod.

You could say that we live in a cruel world that tosses an old man to the side without any regard for the dignity of human life, but I prefer to think that St. Peter had a sudden opening for a doorman at the pearly gates and knew just the man for the job.

Rest in peace, Mike, and tell Bob his nephew misses him deeply.

Showband legend Jimmy Smith reveals all

I know it’s only rock and roll but y’all like it, but let’s talk about books this week. Specifically, the raucous story of Ned the Bed, written by showband great Jimmy Smith.

Smith was the founder, leader and manager of the Mighty Avons, back in the heyday when showbands ruled the Irish music scene. I’ve often heard my parents talk about “the showband era” which swept through Ireland in the 1960s and ‘70s. Chances are, the very mention of the word showband conjures up vivid memories for a generation of Irish immigrants that have seen their 60th birthday come and go (how’s that for being diplomatic?)

My grandfather on my mother’s side worked the rural areas of Limerick with a clarinet as part of the Joe Farrell Band, and my father can recall the great craic seeing the local boys play in and around Tuam.
“Ah, that was music,” he sighed over the weekend as he fondled the book binding of Ned the Bed.

“There were five show bands working in Tuam at one time -- Johnny Flynn’s Showband. Jerry and the Ohio, Liam Ivory’s band. The Times, which had my cousin Walter Lynch as drums.”

With Smith at the helm, the Mighty Avons would go on to see major success all over the world, playing in such hallowed venues such as Carnegie Hall in New York and the Royal Albert Hall in London.

They made the British charts with a 40-week run of their debut record, one of the first Irish bands ever to do so.

Smith’s book Ned the Bed is a tale of the fictional Nova’s Showband and their leader, trombone playing Ned Brady.

Smith is a potent storyteller with a wicked talent for writing dialogue. Ned the Bed has movie written all over it, with characters that jump off the page and into the bed of a waiting groupie.

Ned uses his trombone to knock the strap off the dress of a hapless fan sitting at the side of the stage in the hopes that he could lure the lass to the couch-like row of seats on the back of the tour bus. Smith gives Jackie Collins a run for her money on the shags-per-page department.

“Back in the 1960s and '70s the showband boom was at its height, and to succeed in this very competitive business the band had to give 101% on stage to make sure the dancers had a good time,” explains Smith during a rollicking chat with the Irish Voice.

“Then afterwards, you had to be ever ready with a big smile, followed by, ‘Hello gorgeous, where did you spring from?’ If that approach worked, then along came the courting and in some cases the lovemaking, which a lot of the time was just plain shafting.

“Because time and space was mostly unavailable back then, most of it was done in the good old knee trembler fashion. Ned Brady took to all of this like a duck to water, earning at a very young age the nickname of Ned the Bed.”

Ned’s story is an impossible one to put down. You can see the storms of ego and power brewing within the band from a mile away, a dynamic made worse when the musicians score a minor hit that opens the door for tours of England and America.

There are hilarious stories in this book, like the time Ned has to fend for himself as a regular punter at a Belfast dance. He can’t get a girl to dance with him to save his life and gets taken down a few pegs when he discovers that without the trombone and the stage to assist him, he was just a loving legend in his own mind.

“It’s very realistic and I know so much about the scene that I was able to pump into the story,” says Smith.

“While it is fictional, I think it is the best possible portrayal of what life was really like on the road in one of these bands. I’ve read another book about the scene called Send them Home Sweating and none of it made sense at all.

“It was written by a non-show band guy interviewing people in the bands. A lot of what was written was third hand. I was in the middle of it all, and I think that makes this book authentic.”

Smith says his writing career began after his musical career ran its course. He went into the security business where there were plenty of hours doing nothing as a night watchman.

“I got a scribbler, put the time and date on it, and off I went,” he says nonchalantly. “I wrote the whole book by hand and would start each page with the question, ‘Where am I going to go next?’

“It took me four years and two centuries to do it. I started it in 1999 and then picked it up a few years ago.”

This isn’t Smith’s first foray into literature. He wrote a popular political satire thinly described as a kid’s book called Animal Mountain in 1989. It was about former Irish Prime Minister Charles Haughey as a hedgehog.

“You’d have to drop money at him and he would roll in it,” Smith says.
Animal Mountain is indicative of the anti-establishment vibe you pick up when you talk to Smith. Though he is a spry, optimistic storyteller, he’ll tell you that he has been burned so many times over the years by many a shady music business character.

Ned the Bed’s sharpest words are reserved to describe the characters trying to separate the lead singer from the fictional showband.

“There are plenty of people in the music business who don’t know musical notes,” he says sarcastically. “They only know pound notes. I lost every penny I had doing the right thing for the bands I was associated with.

“There was always someone whispering in the talent’s ear when they got big enough. ‘Smith can take you no further. I can make you a star.’ I learned the hard way that you have to copyright the name of your band and you must lock up the lead singer in a contract for at least five years.

“Don’t blame the singer when he makes you wrong; blame the vulture. Many people with no talent whatsoever made it in the music business by riding the back of the lead singer. Contracts are the only thing that keep the vultures away, and believe you me, there’s a vulture on every pole in the music business!”

The showbands were a cultural lifeline to the rural west of Ireland. Their covers of songs from Buddy Holly, Jim Reed and the Beatles might have been the first time some people heard those songs.

Though the stories are racy in spots, Ned the Bed provides the reader with a critical piece of musical artifact from a bygone era.

“No one has any interest in Irish showbands anymore, and it is a sin how the Irish music business is more interested in the international acts than the home grown ones,” he laments.

“RTE puts on these talent shows and they are awful. There’s this brand new station in Ireland now dedicated to classical music. I like that kind of music as much as the next man, but there aren’t that many classical music acts running around the back roads of Ireland trying to make a living.

“The showband era consisted in its heyday of 5,000 musicians and another 5,000 roadies and bus mechanics employed to support it. That’s a lot of people employed by the show bands and there is still a market for it. There are more talented country guitarists in Ireland than there are in Nashville, but the radio stations think it’s uncool to play this music.”

You’re only a few pages in before you realize that Ned the Bed is too cool for words! No Irish beach blanket should be without Ned this summer.
Ned the Bed is available on Amazon.com. Smith will launch the book at a party at Paddy Reilly’s (519 Second Avenue New York; 212 686-1210) Thursday, July 15, from 6-8 p.m.