Like many, the Brawler was saddened and surprised to see Patrick McIlheran, generally a right wing kind of guy, take a week off. Saddened, because it means fewer takedowns like this or this or this of Paddy Mack's generally wrong minded viewspoints.
Surprised because Mack already taken off a good chunk of time this summer. Given his generally antiworker sentiments, the Brawler suspected that Mack would have forfeited most of his vacation as a matter of principle. But apparently principles have limits.
Gone but not forgotten. The Brawler will endeavor to revisit some of Paddy Mack's hits of the recent and distant past while he's gone. And where better to start than at the beginning? So far as the Brawler knows, the 17-year-0ld letter to the New York Times is the first time Paddy Mack's yawp was heard across the country.
From a 6/18/89 letter to the New York Times.
To the Editor:
So Tracy Chapman, Lou Reed and the other spawn of Bob Dylan are upset because the poor are with us and all is not right with the world - or so Stephen Holden says in ''Pop's Angry Voices Sound the Alarm'' [ May 21 ] .
That's fine; none of us should be complacent about the way the world is. But what galls me - and, I'd guess, many other ordinary, good-hearted folk - is the suggestion in all this angry music that the plight of the homeless, the plague of crack, the threat of instant vaporization is my fault, or the fault of those who have built an innocuously happy life for themselves. Tracy and Lou and John Cougar Mellencamp haven't figured out yet that life isn't a zero-sum game, that when honest people manage through fate and some work to find moderate prosperity, it isn't because they robbed someone else.
No, the poor aren't all to blame for their travails, and not all who live well are paragons. But so long as this music drives itself merely on hatred, it will never say anything to me.
PATRICK MCILHERAN
Winona, Minn.
The Brawler is not prone to giggling. But the thought of young Mack getting so ticked off by a story about Tracy Chapman and Lou Reed that he put pen to paper ... well, the Brawler is not embarrassed to say he succumbed (For the record, Tracy Chapman didn't say much to the Brawler nor has most of Lou Reed's output of the past, oh, nearly three decades. The Brawler vastly prefers the work of Reed's Velvet Undergound bandmate John Cale. As for JCM -- R-O-C-K in the USA! But I digress.)
Still, one has to admit the essence of Paddy Mack is already here. His inimitable writing style -- the sentences that soar like turkeys (read the first one aloud), the silly phrasings ("spawn of Bob Dylan," "innocuously happy lives for themselves") and the silly diction (seriously, "paragons"?)
The Brawler also wonders if Paddy Mack's hostility to the estate tax can be traced back to the rage Stephen Holden's story (giggle) inspired in him. These rock stars are trying to make me feel bad for my moderate prosperity! Imagine how angry -- and maybe sad -- they must make the useless scions waiting for dad to take a fast car to the cemetery! It makes as much sense as his flawed enthusiasm for Bush's tax policy.
And of course it's possible for an honest person to enjoy a moderate prosperity without robbing someone. But over the past two years Mack has tirelessly supported a war based on deceit that has robbed hundreds of families of their loved ones -- all the while making the world a more dangerous place. I dunno, would he consider that adequate grounds for anger?
And given his love of the Go-Gos, the Brawler shudders to think what he was listening to when he wrote this screed.
Good stuff. Paddy Mac's Highway 61 days revisited.
He and Sykes are both on vacation, leaving McBride of Bucher and Bob Donahl in charge.
Posted by: Xoff | August 15, 2006 at 10:40 AM
McIlheran and I had a pretty civil e-mail exchange following my critical posting on "Sprawled Out," but he unfortunately didn't correct the material on his blog that I thought we'd agreed mischaracterized my opinion.
Oh well ...
Posted by: John Michlig | August 15, 2006 at 12:20 PM