Rod Stewart — For Real

After last night's American Idol finale (my daughter nearly threw a Howard Cosell brick through the TV when Kris Allen won — hey, she's a rocker) I thought it was necessary to remind myself just who the balls Rod Stewart was.
Here's the guy I wish America had seen last night — one of rock and roll's all-time great singers:

Womack Daddy

On Saturday night, Lisa and I saw Dave Alvin play at the Columbus Maennechor in front of a couple hundred very well-behaved patrons.

The Maennechor is an old German supper club-type joint and the show was in a small ballroom-ish space that was kinda sterile and kinda creepy, frankly.

Anyway ...

I love Dave Alvin. He is responsible for a great many of my favorite songs and also plays a central part in one of the enduring urban myths of our time — The Wet Alternator.

It has to do with Dave Alvin at the Tin Angel in Philly in 1997, my brother Trip, rain and deep deception.

(You'll have to ask Trip about the details — I've repressed the whole sordid affair.)

Dave Alvin's show was impeccable.

It was the musical equivalent of the film Unforgiven. Moments of greatness and inspiration sprinkled through long, tasteful stretches of Alvin's warm baritone talk-singing/storytelling that nearly put my wife down for the count.

(Beware the mango-tini at The Old Mohawk in German Village. And, for the record, she was out like a light 40 minutes into Unforgiven — no alcohol was involved.)

The Dave Alvin concert was a show that I know I'm supposed to have loved. I mean finally taking advantage of the opportunity to see this living legend in concert.

But — brace for the heresy, music nerds — Dave Alvin acoustic live is a little boring. A tad monotonous. Something of a museum piece.

Yes, he got our blood surging with a rousing King of California and a lovely Every Night About This Time and a heartfelt Kern River. Plus, he's genuinely funny and endearingly grumpy.

Yet, I couldn't help but think of Sinead O'Connor many times during the night.

Bear with me.

Sinead O'Connor has a habit of whisper-singing to the point that I want to take a hammer to the cd player. But when she decides to actually, ya know, really sing — it is beautiful and stirring.

Dave Alvin spent a good deal of time whisper-talk-singing and, frankly, I found it kind of annoying. Mostly because when he actually sung, he sounded great.

His guitar playing — and that of his sidekick Chris Miller — was tasteful and sterling.

But tasteful guitar heroism isn't all that high on my list of concerns — concert-wise.

I want to feel. Be moved. Identify.

For that, I had to go to the Red Door Tavern the very next night.

Along with fifteen other extremely fortunate people — I had the pleasure of seeing singer/songwriter/author/wandering troubador Tommy Womack (left) play.

Yes, one-five.

15. As in one more than 14.

If Dave Alvin was channeling Clint then Tommy Womack was channeling a southern-tinged Aaron Sorkin. Highly literate, self-deprecating, slightly sentimental, deeply opinionated and often hilarious, Tommy Womack is a first-rate songwriter, a sneaky-good singer and a road-tested sure-footed performer.

He even got the dickhead in the corner to stop his relentless texting and join in the standing O after Womack did The Replacements — the best song ever about a real band.

If you like John Prine. If you dig Todd Snider. If you can't get enough of well-written, world-weary, witty, generous and occasionally angry songs that you sing along to even though you've only just heard them for the first time —

Tommy Womack is your guy.

I'm no expert on Tommy Womack. I've seen him play live twice in my life. And the first time, in 1999 at the Sutler in Nashville, I wasn't crazy about it. Lisa was. I was not.

I am now crazy about it.

And prior to Sunday, I couldn't name you more than three Womack songs. Further I have incurred the enduring wrath of my brother Scott (who recently shared the bill with Womack in Philly — and put the wandering troubadour up as well) by neglecting to, as yet, read The Cheese Chronicles.

But, let me just say this about that ...

For one night in a neighborhood hole-in-the-wall in front of 15 people, Tommy Womack killed it. He connected. It was loose, scruffy and emotionally fraught.

He was singing about himself ... and us.

... In The Booth Today

Column inches by the hundreds and blog pages by the thousands are paying tribute to Harry Kalas, the one and only voice of the Philadelphia Phillies.

Why?

Why is Harry Kalas, a guy who announced baseball games and narrated football highlight films for a living so beloved? Why is there so much emotion behind the tributes? Why do we care?

Because ...

It is rare to experience someone so clearly the very best at what he does — and experience it for so long (Kalas became the voice of the Phillies in 1971) with no hang-ups, no hiccups, no dust-ups.

Kalas loved his job. He respected his good fortune. Unlike Harry Caray, he was no clown but he never took himself too seriously. Unlike Vin Scully, he never tried to make baseball or the announcing of it more than what it was, yet he knew how to frame the drama of the sport. In addition, Kalas had the great fortune of having the perfect broadcast partner — Richie Ashburn — for nearly thirty years.

Listening to Harry Kalas do a baseball game was damn near sports perfection.

Countless books, articles and essays have been written about the generational pull of baseball — the magical way that it connects people to their past and those who inhabited it.

That is the greatest gift that Harry Kalas gave to those of us fortunate enough to hear his calls.

It's impossible to hear the voice of Kalas and not be flooded with images, sounds and emotions from summers and falls gone by.

The cliched image of a little kid listening to some piece-of-crap transistor radio under the covers fit like a glove in our chaotic, unpredictable household. And it was Harry Kalas who often carried us through the night — especially on the West Coast swings that stretched past midnight and beyond.

Not only the greats like Steve Carlton, Mike Schmidt, Larry Bowa and Juan Samuel but forgotten names like Max Scarce, Willie Montanez, Tommy Hutton, Wayne Twitchell and Larry Hisle— not to mention Gene Garber, Oscar Gamble, Bake McBride and Dick Ruthven — came to vivid life across the airwaves via the memorable pipes of Harry Kalas.

The call by Kalas of Mike Schmidt's 500th home run is one of the great, emotionally stirring calls of all time.

Hearing it again these last few days gave me chills. It choked me up.

My brothers and I spent untold hours playing baseball and every variation of baseball every summer of my youth. And we always did Kalas when something memorable happened.

My old man was an accomplished minor-league and semi-pro baseball player and he lives and dies with the Phillies. Listening to Harry Kalas and Whitey Ashburn in the summer was one of the only things (possibly the only thing) we could all agree on.

So many of those moments Kalas called — from Rick Wise's no-hitter in 1971 to Schmidt's 500th in 1987 to Brad Lidge striking out Eric Hinske this past October — evaporate the distance between what we were and who we are now.

Finally — Mike Schmidt, the greatest Phillie of all-time, told a story today on ESPN radio about how Kalas would affectionately call him "In The Game Today" — as in "the greatest player in the game today." Schmidt would respond in kind with "In The Booth Today."

The booth today is empty and will never be the same.

OFF THE BEATEN PATH — 12 DAYS OF IRISH 2009 — DAYS Ten, Eleven and Twelve — McCredie

This comes exactly a week late by the reckoning of the calendar but, in fact, it is years overdue.

Because you need to know about Jeff McCredie — and, yes, he has done enough in his life so far to warrant three days' worth of verbiage.

Jeff McCredie is a true original.


He comes from the kind of Irish-American family about which weepy, redemptive movies-of-the-week are made.

Old man abandons the family, mother shoulders the Herculean burden of raising three kids, bouncing from Kentucky to upstate New York to Havertown, Pennsylvania, kid beats the odds and you can imagine the rest...

Only here's the thing: Jeff emerged — bruised and scarred — as a driven, gifted young man who excelled at ... well, everything:

Smarter than everyone — and when I say everyone — I mean friggin' everyone! Dude's in MENSA.

Great tennis player.

Better baseball player.

Okay — typical white-guy hoopster. But still ...

Talented actor.

Prolific painter (We have two hanging in our house — neither of which he'd let us pay for, the moron.)

Bad -ass lawyer.

Drinker of a solid pint.

Loyal friend.

Out-sized, reckless heart.

American hero.

Oh ... didn't see that last one coming? Its the truth. And its important that you know it because he has— on countless occasions and without fanfare or accolades — made your life safer and better.

And, if you've ever been within a five-mile radius of him, he has made your life louder, funnier, vastly more interesting and memorable.

Because McCredie is nothing if not memorable.

I didn't know Jeff all that well growing up. He lived a few blocks away from us in Havertown and he was a few years older than me.

I only got to really know him when he graciously opened his home to me on my first visit to Los Angeles. That was 1998. Upon my arrival, he dropped everything and, within minutes, we had two well-poured pints of Guinness sitting in front of us.

It was 11:20 in the a.m. (For the record — it tasted great.)

By that time, Jeff had graduated from Eastern College (cum laude, with some kind of freak-genius triple major in History, Poly Sci and Business Admin) , where he was the only baseball player in the school's history to play in every game. Later he was invited to The Philadelphia Phillies training camp. He ultimately went on to play semi-pro ball.

Along the way he was able to squeeze in becoming a nationally-ranked tennis player.

(My brother Trip used to play tennis with Jeff — and was lucky to win a point. If memory serves, one of Jeff's booming serves nailed Trip right in the weiner. That alone makes Jeff one of my all-time favorite people.)

Oh and let's not forget that Fulbright scholarship to the University of Hamburg.
It was during that experience that Jeff first came into contact with the Agency. The Company. The Spook House. The CIA. What did he do during that time?

You don't have clearance, Clarence.

Then Jeff knocked out your basic law degree from Temple University and promptly became indispensable as assistant D.A. of Montgomery County in suburban Philly.

(He once prosecuted a case involving my cousin's seriously flawed first husband and withstood — with grace and wit — daily grillings from my old man. I think we all know the self-control involved in that.)

And then it began.

Jeff became a walking, talking Robert Ludlum novel.

For three years he was a Special Agent in the Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) in the area of counter-terrorism. He worked closely with special ops groups and was also an anti-terrorism instructor.

The next five years saw Jeff employed as a legal advisor in the Office of International Affairs at the Justice Dept.

Suffice to say, neither of these assignments were desk jobs. Both involved willingly going into places and situations that would have you and me curled up in the fetal position screaming for our mommies.

Wherever bullets were flying, laws were being broken, bombs were exploding, rebellions were percolating, dictators were scheming and people were dying — Jeff went there and did that which was asked of him.

By us.

Imagine the following places at their absolute worst — and that's when Jeff was there:

Liberia
Northern Ireland
Russia
Israel
The Phillipines
Thailand
Zimbabwe
Iraq
Afghanistan
Pakistan
South Africa

That's roughly a quarter of his passport stamps.

And the only souvenirs he brought back (besides some killer African masks and a dizzying array of weapons) were a wrecked shoulder; chronic, debilitating back problems; broken bones; memories that would psychologically buckle ordinary people and a whippin' case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

I'm sure plenty of people in Jeff's former line of work bullshit their way to free drinks and good sex, spinning gourmet meals of embellishment concerning their own heroics.

However, in those circles, there is evidently an unwritten rule that states — the veracity of any given story is iron-clad only if a fellow agent tells it about you.

One night at a Japanese restaurant with Jeff and two friends of his — a real-life Mr. and Mrs. Smith — the married spook couple told the most mind-blowing story of ballsy nerve and outright courage I've ever heard.

It was about Jeff.

And even taking into account our epic sake consumption and my own inclination toward exaggeration ("Did I ever dunk in a game? Hell yes! Twice, dude!" Yeah, if games of Nerf basketball count.) the story about Jeff was insane. His well-ya-know-what-else-could-I-do shrug was all he added.

After eight years of operating in the shadows and fighting off the demons of his memory, Jeff landed in Los Angeles. He had been acting for years on stage in and around D.C. — in between dodging automatic weapon fire and chasing down terrorists — and he wanted to give his acting career his full attention.

His day job was as a Special Agent with the Justice Dept.'s Inspector General Office. He investigated the illegal activity of scuzzball Justice employees. From busting drug rings in California's most notorious prisons to South Central gang takedowns to cutting off human trafficking operations, McCredie jumped from the frying pan into the fire.

(Take that — all you pussy actors who've ever whined about your bartending or catering or temp jobs ... oh wait, that's me. Shit.)

And he hustled for acting work — which was hard to come by. He worked on stage and scrambled for film and TV jobs. Jeff and I commiserated about the business. We collaborated on two scripts. We became friends. He was one of the first people to see our daughter Eirann after she was born.

He also pulled a slightly demented practical joke on Lisa two months earlier that nearly induced labor on the spot.

(Lisa and I went to Duke's in Malibu with Jeff one night. As we're leaving, he breaks off and starts a conversation in Farsi with some Middle Eastern guy there. He's also fluent in German. I mean, Jesus Christ, I can barely speak English. Farsi!?)

And he painted and painted and painted. He painted landscapes and beach scenes and every piece of art he produced seemed to search for some kind of peace, a respite.

A brief, failed marriage and the spectacularly awful and abrupt end of his government career led to Jeff having to confront his demons, his PTSD, his lingering injuries and a lifelong struggle with depression head-on.

Which he did.

And the government didn't want to help him. In fact, the government tried their level best to deny Jeff that which he was owed.

The government — our government — wanted to scrapheap a guy who had left pieces of himself scattered across the globe in service to his country. This is not a new story — given the appalling disregard Washington has shown to veterans. But, ya know what, this is Jeff's story. And he had to fight and claw to get that which he had earned several times over.

Finally, he was grudgingly awarded disability pay from the government. Grudgingly.

In recent years he has had excruciating back surgery and major shoulder surgery. There are a battery of medications he takes to keep the wolves at bay. He — like my father, my nephew and countless other combat veterans — continues to struggle with the fallout of his service to our country.

A couple of years ago, he left L.A. for Virginia — to care for his ailing mother — the other hero of this story. She was the one who kept the family together, from whom Jeff inherited his smarts (she was valedictorian) and who introduced Jeff to art.

He has — for all intents and purposes — shouldered this responsibility alone. His fractured family could not bridge the gap. As his mother's condition deteriorated, Jeff was the constant, doing all the things that constitute the daily care of a terminally ill 72-year-old woman.

If you've ever had to watch a parent waste away and were powerless to stop it ... try doing it alone.

Last week, he made the most wrenching decision of his life --- to take his mother off life support.

Okay, listen — Jeff McCredie is not a saint — far from it.

In fact, sometimes he's closer to some rogue hybrid of Bruce Campbell, Al Hrabosky and Michael Collins who simply won't shut up or listen. His missteps are legendary.

But they are dwarfed by his generosity, his friendship, his talent and his commitment to those he loves.

Jeff McCredie is one of the the most fascinating, maddening, opinionated, eccentric, hilarious and loyal people I've ever come across. He has sacrificed more than most of us can imagine. The government has forgotten him (and many like him.) He never has — and never will — ask for your pity. I only ask that — this one time — you recognize a forgotten American hero.

And maybe get him an agent. He's a pretty fuckin' good actor.

OFF THE BEATEN PATH — 12 DAYS OF IRISH 2009 — DAY NINE — THE MATCHMAKER

Okay, look. I realize that few people can be as annoying as Janeane Garofalo but — overheated, sweaty and emotional unhinged political diatribes aside — she can be a charming and funny actor.

Really.

And nowhere is this more on display than in The Matchmaker, a sweet romantic comedy that tanked at the box office when it came out in 1997.


Garofalo plays Marcy, a political operative for McGlory, a Massachusetts senator up for re-election (a hilariously clueless Jay O. Sanders.) McGlory sends Marcy to Ireland to rustle up some relatives to help him solidify his base back home.


Marcy lands in Ballinagra — same town, different name of most Irish comedies not set in Dublin. And when the put-out, put-upon, homesick Marcy meets scruffy journalist Sean (the estimable David O'Hara — seriously, is there a better lovable nutjob than his Steven in Braveheart?) you know exactly where this puppy is headed.

But like all good romantic comedies — it's the how, not the what. And The Matchmaker has some grit, some great lines and a funny, touching performance from the great Milo O'Shea. Denis Leary adds his two cents as McGlory's hatchet man — in one of his patented prickly, exasperated, fast-talking comic turns.

And the music. Oh the music.

So give Janeane Garofalo a shot. She's not on Larry King or Air America. She's just acting. And that she can do.

OFF THE BEATEN PATH — 12 DAYS OF IRISH 2009 — DAY EIGHT — Rory McIlroy

Golf is as Irish as U2, Guinness and calamitous, alcohol-fueled family holidays.

The reigning face of Irish golf is Padraig Harrington — the Dublin-born, steely-eyed pseudo-nerdy guy who has three major championships to his credit, including the past two (2008's British Open and the PGA Championship.)

Then there is Darren Clarke — the cigar-chomping, hair-dyeing, fun-loving Northern Irishman who has won 16 times world-wide.

And, now, in the shadow of those two stars and such all-time greats as Des Smyth and Christy O'Connor, comes the next Great Pasty White Hope:

19-year old phenom Rory McIlroy.














A native of Hollywood, Northern Ireland, McIlroy has had an eerily Tiger-like ascent into golf's stratosphere:

Smacking 40-yard lasers at the age of two.

First hole-in-one at nine.

Led the winning Junior Ryder Cup team in 2004.

Youngest-ever winner of Ireland's two coveted amateur titles, West of Ireland and Irish Close Championships, in 2005.

Won them again in 2006, along with the European Amateur.

Turned pro in 2007 and shot into the top 100.

After a few close-but-no-Darren-Clarke-cigars, he won the 2009 Dubai Desert Classic, edging former English teen-age phenom Justin Rose for the title.

He is currently ranked #16 in the world.

No less than Woods himself has pronounced McIlroy the future heir to #1.

I'm no expert but this has to really be getting up Sergio Garcia's ass.


In addition, if you happen to find yourself in Ireland and all the usual suspects — Ballybunion, Lahinch, Portmarnock, Royal Portrush, etc. — are booked solid and Aer Lingus has dumped your clubs somewhere in the Atlantic, fear not.

Give a call to the European Club — in Brittas Bay, County Wicklow. It is at least the equal of the aforementioned legendary links. And, yes, I say this with all the certainty of one who has played none of them except the European Club.

But the Europena Club has charm to burn in addition to being a phenomenal links course. It used to be the greatest bargain activity in all of Ireland at 40 pounds for 18 holes. But Tiger Woods played there in 2002 and now it costs 180 euros — about $233.

If any course can actually be worth $233 (and I seriously doubt that one can) the European Club is it.

By comparison, Pebble Beach costs $495 AND you have to pay for the goddamn cart(!) — and you don't even get the wit and wisdom and impromptu step dance from that Richard Harris look-a-like working on pint # 7 in the clubhouse who still has enough left in the tank to flirt with your wife.

Golf in Ireland — you gotta do it once.

OFF THE BEATEN PATH — 12 DAYS OF IRISH 2009 — DAY SEVEN — ALL SOULS

And you thought your family was a mess ...















Michael Patrick McDonald spills his heart, his guts and his blood onto the pages of this tragic, viciously funny and deeply moving Irish-American family portrait.

That's it. That's all I got.

Read it and weep. And laugh. And realize that, hey, maybe your fucked-up family ain't so bad after all. At least they're .. ya know ... alive.

This book is stunning.