IRISHMAN FOR HIRE

It was a show about science versus faith. Good versus evil. Free will versus destiny. Redemption versus damnation. LOST packed all of this in a six year run that has left so many unanswered questions and personal interpretations about what happened on a remote island somewhere in the Pacific, that I believe the show will be watched again and again and talked about for years to come.

The irony is that LOST is the perfect metaphor for life. We may not be stranded on a remote island in the middle of nowhere trying to find a way home but how many of us can say that we have truly conquered the mysteries and meanings of our own lives? I know I can’t.

I am a man of faith. I believe I have done a lot more good in the world than harm. I believe everything happens for a reason and through the journey of my life, I find myself seeking redemption in my faith on a daily basis. And yet those everyday struggles still remain and with each new challenge I face, my belief in myself and my core values are tested.

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In September, a friend of mine expanded his DJ/karaoke business to a local establishment in the Quincy area. Before his first Wednesday night, he contacted a bunch of friends and asked us to come down and support him. It’s been fourteen years since I was in a band, so I didn’t need a lot of arm twisting to show up, especially after my experience in Disney World last February.

It was a large crowd of people that showed up that first night and we had so much fun, that we have been going back just about every Wednesday night since. One night in October, the tavern was packed full of people. It was a great crowd for the middle of the week and as usual, Bill called me up early to sing a couple of songs to warm up the crowd. I was having fun and I even let Bill pick songs at random to see if I could perform them without knowing what the song was before I grabbed the microphone.

During the course of the evening as I was walking back to our table after performing a song, I lost track of the waitress and wanted to refill my glass of Coke. So I grabbed my empty glass, walked up to the bar and asked the bartender for a refill. As I was standing there waiting for the bartender to bring back my drink, I felt a finger tapping me on my shoulder.

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As I was leaving work and walking to my car a week ago, I noticed that my rear tire was losing air pressure. As I knelt down to inspect the wheel a little more closely, I saw a nail sticking out of the tire.

“Damn!” I said to myself as I jumped into my car and drove slowly to the nearest service station to have the tire plugged. But once I got to there, my day started to get a little worse.

“Sir, I think you might have a bigger problem,” the mechanic said to me after he removed the wheel from my car and rolled it into the service bay.

“What is it?”

“The inner tread of your two rear tires is worn away,” he said as he showed me the wheel he had just removed from my car. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Neither have I,” I replied as I inspected the tire for myself. “Will it last the week or should I replace them now.”

It was 6:00 p.m. and the mechanic was in a rush to get home. He told me that he could plug the tire and it would be fine for a couple of weeks, but he strongly suggested that I replace my rear wheels as soon as possible.

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It is official. I have officially ended my political career. I have dissolved my committee. And even though I have declared my intentions, I have been asked numerous times over the weekend to reconsider. But this is not a Brett Favre melodrama, this decision is final.

The contemplation of whether or not to run started three months ago as more and more people approached me about running for statewide office again. And as I weighed the option of running, I came to the conclusion that there are so many good reasons to run for State Representative but at the same time, there are so many better reasons not to enter the race in 2010. And after I had lunch with a friend of mine a couple of weeks ago, I knew my brief flirtation with politics had come to an end.

“Are you going to run for State Representative next year?” he asked.

“I’m not a politician. 2004 was a different time and I think it’s time for me to move on.”

“What are you talking about? You’re the best chance we have at winning the seat.”

“I applaud your optimism but let me rephrase my answer; I am an obsolete politician! I am old school. So no, I won’t be running next year,” I said as his jaw fell wide open at my declaration. He pressed me for the reasons I used to justify myself as an obsolete politician so I spelled them out for him.

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I poured a cup of coffee, walked to the front of the house, opened the door and went out onto the front deck to sit and bask in the sunlight. It was finally a nice day. The sun was shining. There wasn’t any humidity. And after a long weekend of rain, it was nice to sit and relax with a cup of coffee on a great summer day before I headed into the office.

I sat down in my chair and took a sip of the coffee. I was looking out over the marsh across the street from my house when out of the corner of my eye, I noticed it. I immediately put my coffee cup down on the table, walked down my front steps and out to the end of my driveway and stared in disbelief at what had happened; my New York Giants mailbox was lying on the ground.

My day was ruined! I was angry; pissed off would be a better way to describe it! As I bent over to pick up the beat up mailbox, I looked around at every other house on the street and my ire at the situation grew even more. My mailbox was the only one on the entire street that had been smashed. I picked up the main part of the mailbox, brought it back into my yard and propped it up on the concrete wall next to the front steps and went back into the house.

It is no secret that I am a New York Giants fan. I have been all my life. I also realize that I live outside of Boston where the fans are extreme supporters of the local sports franchises. I understand that and if this act of vandalism had happened back in the first week of February, then I might have been a little more understanding of such a targeted attack on my personal property. It would have made sense. It would have still been wrong but it would have made sense. But there is no rational explanation for this type of vandalism to take place in August. It is six months after the Super Bowl and for my mailbox to have been damaged now defies conventional logic or explanation because the argument about it “happening in the heat of the moment” has long passed.

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I came home from work the other day and was greeted with another reminder of the fact that I am getting old; I was sent a “save the date” card for my high school reunion. Last year, I was sent an invitation for my 20th reunion and this year would mark my 21st year since graduation. If being married, having a mortgage, kids, two cars and a regular nine to five job hadn’t reminded me on a daily basis of my maturation in the life process; the reminder card for my high school reunion did the trick. I am officially old!

Later that night, I thought about what I was doing as I was getting ready to go back to school to start my senior year. I would like to say that I remembered it fondly, but I didn’t. I remembered being excited to finish the final year of high school so I could move on with my life. But the more I thought about that time, the more I recalled how I had been completely and utterly “snubbed” by the school administration at the conclusion of my junior year.

My parents had decided to enroll me in a prep school in the northwestern hills of Connecticut. My father was an alumnus and my brother was a senior when I was a freshman. I never had a choice in the decision. It was a foregone conclusion when my brother and I were younger that we would be spending our high school years at prep school.

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It was a cold and rainy morning. It was one of those days when the damp air settled into your bones and the rain felt like little ice picks that pierced any exposed skin on contact. My body felt like it was full of miniature tunnels as the wind whipped through me and chilled me to the core as I waited to take the Red Line from North Quincy to Downtown Crossing.

The platform was full of people who were standing shoulder to shoulder waiting for the next train to arrive and in many respects, trying to stay warm. As the train slowly came to a stop at the station, everyone decided to race through the open doors all at once and the entry way to the train became jammed with people who were jostling for the best position to get onto each car. I waited until the last person entered and then I stepped onto the train.

I decided that it must have been the weather that made everyone act so impolitely and selfishly. I didn’t want to believe that this many people could be rude to each other while trying to get to work or to school in the morning. It had to be the rain that had affected everyone’s better judgment and nothing else. But to my surprise, I noticed something that struck me as odd as the train pulled out of the station and made its way into Boston. I noticed that chivalry was dead.

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I was driving home late a few weeks ago after a very long day, so I decided to put in my U2 “Live at Red Rocks” CD so that I could sing along with it in order to help me keep my eyes on the road. As I pulled into my driveway and was about to turn off the car, I heard the familiar and eerily subtle beginning of “40” as Bono said to the crowd, “This is forty, sing this with me.”

I put my head back against the head rest, turned the volume all the way up, closed my eyes and started singing along with the CD. In an instant I was transformed back to a concert hall two decades ago when I was standing in the crowd while U2 performed “40” right in front of me. Twenty thousand people of different races, creeds, religions, political backgrounds and various other ideologies came together as one voice to sing the chorus with Bono:

I will sing, sing a new song
I will sing, sing a new song
How long to sing this song?
How long to sing this song?
How long, how long, how long
How long, to sing this song?

We sang as loud as we could and as the band on the stage had settled into the mellow, soft drum beat, we sang louder. We came together as a community around this one anthem singing loudly back to the stage. As the house lights came up and we filed out into the city streets, twenty thousand strong kept singing the chorus to “40” in unison over and over again. It was electric. The goose bumps ran up and down my spine as we all headed off singing in various directions, consumed by our new marching orders, as we spread the word that the time for hatred and intolerance in the world had come to an end.

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