Shane MacGowan, a Man of Words

I found out yesterday that Shane MacGowan had passed.

My cousin texted me.  His last name is my middle name, his dad was my mother’s twin brother.  His brother plays the bagpipes. I have a brother named, “Mick.” Somehow, for a couple of Irish Americans, it seemed truly apt that this was how I’d receive this news.  It came with the usual initial surprise when anyone passes.  In the case of Shane, it wasn’t the shock of a life taken too early by a car wreck or a heart attack.  Sadly, I know that shock.  This wasn't that.

It was a surprise.

It was a surprise that he had stayed this long.  My cousin joked that Shane had been a favorite in death pools, that sad and dark game wagering on life’s inevitable conclusion for celebrities, for years.  The man dodged odds for a time that was long past his anticipated end date, though going out packaged with Henry Kissinger reminds me of that laugh of his.  So close to the day he arrived here, Christmas, his birthday.  He even got new teeth!  Now, he was ready to go forever.

The social media postings came fast and furious upon his demise, which also surprised but didn’t shock me.  I have spent most of my adult life in nightlife.  I have great friends who share that vocation.  It’s a unique and distinct way of life, one that Shane shared around the world.  I know many people who shared a tipple with him.  Not a single one didn’t mourn his passing.

So, now I offer my own tale.  Two unexpected nights with a fascinating person.

I showed up at J.J. Foley’s on Kingston Street in Boston.  I had been readily educated that it was the very best last call in Boston and a “Globe Bar.”  I wrote frequently for the Boston Globe, the South End Foley’s was a Boston Herald bar.  Cities with two newspapers are exceedingly rare, and I feel fortunate to have been a part of that.  Foley’s always reminded me of what I imagined the bars that my grandfathers frequented in Newark must have been like.  Regulars talking about the events of the day: sports, politics, obituaries.  Even the arts and music, which included one special guest that night.

Arriving on that night in 2007, I offered my usual greetings to the friends I knew at the bar. One finally said, as I ordered my first, “You must be here to see your friend.”

My friend?  I assumed that I’d already seen all the folks that I knew when a bartender named Jim Savage, another friend who has sadly passed, said, “He’s in the back.”  I had no idea who “He” was.  I shrugged my shoulders and looked quizzically.  Savage responded in his typically smart-assed fashion, “Go have a look, I think you’ll recognize him.”

I gathered my pint and walked to the booths in the back and saw a small gathering around the most rear booth.  Lots of empty glasses and overflowing ashtrays on the table when my friend, Josie, a lovely Irish lass from the old country, saw me and said, “Shane, here’s a man you must meet.”

And there he was.  I knew that the Pogues had played the Orpheum that night, but I had not attended.  I had seen the Pogues before, and enjoyed them, but was never a devoted fan.   However, Shane McGowan was an established legend.  The opportunity to slide in next to him and toss a couple back was obviously irresistible.  So, I did.

He was initially tentative, which I understand and appreciate.  I was a stranger until Josie called out to him, “He’s a journo, Shane!  You love to talk about yourself!”  The entire table laughed and the ice was broken.

What happened from there was completely unexpected.  In the year of 2007, the nominees for the “Best Film” category in the Academy Awards were “Atonement,” “Juno,” ”Michael Clayton,” “No Country for Old Men,” and “There Will Be Blood.”  A fine field and I had seen them all.

So had Shane.

Initially, deciphering his ideas was arduous. His speech was legendarily slurry and marked by his raspy and hissing laugh when he made a point.  He reminded me of the one time I spoke with Hunter Thompson.  Another man with a huge dexterity with words that verbally delivered his thoughts in a manner that needed focused attention before you locked into his voice.  In both cases, once you got it, you got it.

He was smart and funny and had obviously seen all these movies.  He chain-smoked cigarettes and double fisted gin and tonic’s (a surprise cocktail choice given his legacy, and when I asked he said, “My tummy likes it when I mix it up!”  The legendary laugh following).  One of the things that impressed me the most was that, having interviewed a fair number of celebrities, very few ask questions.  Shane would make a point and then ask what I thought.  It was a great conversation.

The next night, I was back at Foley’s.  I saw Josie and laughed, telling her what an unexpectedly great time I’d had the previous night.  She smiled and said, being an employee at the hotel where the Pogues were staying, “You might have another chance.  He never left.”  She told me that when the knock on his door came to meet his car to the airport, he had responded with a characteristic, “Bugger off!

If I hadn’t witnessed it I’d have thought it was the thing of fairy tales, but as if on cue he came walking in.  Wow.  Round two.

We had a chat and I thanked him for the great one the previous evening.  He seemed to drift in and out of the memory of the last night, at one point flashing on “Juno” and referencing that movie’s Sonic Youth reference, which led into his admiration of My Bloody Valentine.  A friend asked me, “Do you know what he is talking about?”  I told him, “Yes, actually I do.”

So, that is how I had the true gift of a couple of nights with Shane MacGowan.  I was given the gift of being with him in what, I think, was his true wheelhouse: an Irish bar, with drinks and an ashtray in front of him, talking about arts that he knew and loved while talking to someone listening to his opinions.  And, curious about theirs.

The curiosity was what I have often recalled about Shane.  The eye contact when he asked a question told me that he wasn’t paying lip service, he wanted to hear what I thought, he was curious.  He was not a good speaker, but he was a great conversationist if you could figure out to hear what he was saying.

I got home very late both of those nights.  I’d explained my later than usual returns home to my former wife (and believe me, she knew I kept odd hours) and when on the third night I was home waiting for her, having made dinner, she asked me to pour us each a Jameson and to meet her on the balcony.

Surprised?  Absolutely.  So tentatively I walked two shots out sheepishly and handed her one.  She took a drag on a cigarette and offered me one from my own pack and asked, “Wondering why we’re here?”

She looked at me and said, “I know these last two nights were important to you in a way that I do and don’t understand, but I knew who you were before I moved in with you.  I usually save a birthday or Christmas present as a secret for you, but guess what, buddy?  You just got both this year.  I am in exams but I am not mad at you, you just got a pass.”

Before I could even respond, she raised her glass and said, “Slainte!” And we knocked down that Jameson as my mind screamed, “Did this Puerto Rican just toast me with ‘Slainte?’”  She then said, “Alright, pour me another and educate me on Shane MacGowan.”

We sat on the couch.  Usually when we talked smart we sat across from one and other, but we were next to each other.  I put on, “If I Should Fall From Grace With God,” and I told her I always wondered if Shane’s battle with life was informed by his birth in England, that he somehow felt this was less-Irish and was why he once said he felt he was a coward for not joining the IRA.

I told her about his teeth, obviously.  We went to the computer and I showed her and after an initial gasp she said, “Well, your people aren’t known for the dental work,” then asked me about an upcoming dentist appointment and said, “It’s actually pretty incredible that he sang so well, he has a beautiful baritone, so expressive.”

Then she said the magic words.  “He’s really a man of words.”

As a writer, or at least one who pretends well enough to have got you reading to this point, a “Man of Letters” is the ultimate complimentary distinction.  Shane MacGowan put words together in an evocative, visceral, highly literate delivery that stood him in stead with the Irish poets of his ancestry that he so sought to honor.  His persona grew legendary - one friend (also coincidentally Irish) who was working at a venue he played with, “The Popes,” told me, “Oh, Shane.  God love him.  Last person here, totally legless but standing tall and asking me if I know another place to go.  Dear Shane.”  Native Irish people in Boston held that boy dear.

So, what does the legendary and tipsy image do for the legacy of truly beautiful lyrics the man wrote?  He hit me both nights that I spent with him with the question, “Wouldn’t cousin Ozzie W. approve?”  The best I can try to describe the sound is, “Wood cuzzzzzin OZZZZIe appppprove?”  I figured out that what he meant was the quote attributed to Irish poet, Oscar Wilde: “‘We are all in the gutter, But some of us are looking at the stars’”

I think I figured it out.  Two days later.

Personally, I’ll always feel a kinship with the mind behind lyrics like these:

“I have cursed, bled and sworn, jumped bail and landed up in jail, Life has often tried to stretch me, but the rope always went slack, And now that I’ve a pile, I’ll go down to the Chelsea, I’ll walk in on my feet, but I’ll leave there on my back.”

Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday, Shane!  And, thank you.

“A Man Of Letters”