I do it because I have all of this debt, and feel very lost I guess.
The debt did originate somewhere, and if my story can help make sense of this systemic thicket. Why not?
More on the Irish Walking Stick:
Anyway, true to me word. Here it is:
Anyway, I do all this self sacrifice for Rockstar05
I'm done for, but I'm with you Buddy, and hope for a better future for you, me, and America.
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Saturday, July 30th. Good Morning Everybody!
Shane jumped all over me this morning, and got me up. It is a beautiful Summer Morning, and even though I feel like my insides are all twisted and wrung out like a wet towel from all the beer last night, I somehow, or for some reason, feel happy.
I have Kathleen Biggins show playing on the radio: A Thousand Welcomes.
It is one of the Saturday morning Irish music programs that Fordham University (in the Bronx) puts on. The link to it is in the right column of this page. Look for the Misc. Links and you will find it. You can also listen to the archived shows if you can't make it on a Sat. Morning.
I guess I fell in Love with the Celtic/Irish music during the 1990's not too long before Riverdance made its debut. As someone described this music once: It is the voice of Humanity.
And I came to learn about my Irish heritage somewhat through this music.
A guy from Ireland once told me that I am "Not a real Irishman" because I am only 1/4 Irish. But I still feel very drawn to the music, and aspects of the culture I guess, that come through in the music. My ex-wife, who is 100 percent Italian BTW, is crazy about Celtic and Irish traditional music. She seemed to favor some sort of modal or off tune fiddle solos that were heard once in a while on the station I mention.
There is also a nexus between traditional Irish music and traditional Jewish, Klezmer music. In fact, I saw Lisa Gutkin, the fiddler who now plays with the Klezmatics, in concert once. Lisa was playing all Celtic tunes, and it was a rare treat to see her live and in such a small venue (the basement of a church).
I also saw Ilene Ivers, the fiddle player from the original Riverdance show, in concert and very up close. Awesome!
Over the years, Rock music has started to leave me cold. Maybe that is just age, or maybe reading professor Allan Bloom sort of killed my enjoyment of Rock. (I'm half kidding when I say that)
But Good Morning again! And A Thousand Welcomes to you! It is a great big, beautiful world on a beautiful summer day, and I thought: What am I worried about? Life is wonderful, or it can be if I want to see it that way.
And what is there more wonderful and beautiful than the Lassies oh! Like Ann Coulter? (I'm laughing now, because AC is probably about ready to smash me over the head with an Irish shillelagh/walking stick. To lather me like a wet sack, and fling me in the tide, as in Paul Brady's song above.
July 30. 11:14AM - I'm heading out. A lot of views on this post so far as I expected, especially for a Saturday.If Ann Coulter does read this blog (stranger things in the world have been known to happen) , I would like to refer her to my father's book, which she might like, and other people as well. The link for it is here:
I have no motive in saying this, but it would make my old Dad very happy if he could meet you someday Ann, as he is a fan, and it is actually from his bookshelf that I got the copies of Treason and Slander that I am reading now. My father is very well known in Heavy Construction circles.
He also watches Glen Beck, and I scratch my head when he does.
Anyway, he won't flirt with you. That is my thing, and God knows I've posted enough stuff on this blog to draw the attention of Ann Coulter or at least one of her people, so to speak.
I did have a link for my father's book on the top of my blog a while ago, but I removed it because I felt it would be too distracting , or distract people from the main theme of my blog, and that theme is:
Oh, I don't know.
But I'm going to see my buddy today. He is about 64,and is retired from the NY Dormitory Authority, where he was a construction manager/supervisor. I met him in Home Depot a few years ago, and we were talking about heavy steel erection in general, and he had read my father's book.
Anyway, yesterday we were talking, and about drinking, and he said very wisely: "Been there. Done all that." And that somehow gave me pause.
Because life does go on, doesn't it. And change can happen, for the better.
Just musing.
You can see my Dad in this clip, towards the end @ 5:20. He is on the far left waving his helmet, standing next to my Uncle, who is wearing the um...gray raincoat or is it called a London Fog raincoat?
Ah, anyway, if you watch Part I and 2 of this old NY Port Authority film, you will see our last name, Koch, on the cranes, and on the red helmets.
BTW, my Grandfather erected all the steel for the US Supreme court building in 1932, and I did post a pic of that somehere on my blog.
And no, I know what everybody is thinking. I don't come from money. The book describes the rise and fall of a family business, and kind of gives a backdrop if anyone wants to understand Painterguy a bit more.
I found some of Alexis de Tocqueville's remarks about the potential for the rise and fall of fortunes in a Democratic America, with every generation, as opposed to an Aristocratic society, to be fascinating, and Tocqueville kind of gave me a perspective, and made me understand a bit more about myself and where I came from I guess.
July 30, 9:38 PM
Just figured I would tease Ann Coulter with this, from my friend Jane:
July 30- 10:47AM EST - Jane, Nando, Cryn, JJD, and Subprime and all me fellow bloggers, here is Father Mapple, and I will catch up next week sometime, as I am out and about, and have a good, blessed Sunday, and take it slow, and easy. Father Mapple will be there always, and never let anyone down.
"Woe to him whose good name means more to him than goodness."
And at the very end, or the very last line in Father Mapple's sermon, I am thinking of Nando, who stands as his own inexorable self against the captains and commodores of the Law School Industrial Complex.
Anyway, have a good Sunday.
