Saying Goodbye to 62 Truck

The other night I watched a very powerful & emotional piece of television that closed out an era. For seven seasons I watched Denis Leary's amazingly edgy show "Rescue Me" which aired on FX. It was the twisted, funny, tragic, manic tale of a firefighter with the FDNY, the legendary Tommy Gavin, and the firefighters of 62 Truck and 99 Engine.

There's no way to adequately describe the show if you haven't seen it. It was raw, gritty, shocking, funny, depressing, entertaining, and addicting. It bent the rules and broke the barriers of what you usually saw on TV. It showed the camaraderie of people in a dangerous profession, the good-natured needling of your buddies that reminded me so much of my time in the Army, the terror of being in a burning building, the toll firefighting takes on your personal life, your marriages & relationships and your very soul. It showed how the people of the FDNY struggled with the memories and after-effects of 9-11. And Tommy Gavin's family was perhaps the most frustratingly dysfunctional group of people I have ever seen.

You grew to love the characters. Occasionally you hated them. It was often the fastest 60 minutes of my week.

Leary is no stranger to firefighters. On December 3, 1999, six firefighters from Leary's hometown of Worcester were killed in the Worcester Cold Storage warehouse fire. Among the dead were Leary's cousin Jerry Lucey and his close childhood friend Tommy Spencer. In response, he founded the Leary Firefighters Foundation in 2000, and the foundation has distributed over $2.5 million to fire departments in the Worcester, Boston, and New York City areas for equipment, training materials, new vehicles, and new facilities. Leary won $125,000 for the foundation on the game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. A separate fund run by Leary's foundation, the Fund for New York's Bravest, has distributed over $2 million to the families of the 343 firemen killed in the September 11 attacks in addition to providing funding for necessities such as a new mobile command center, first responder training, and a high-rise simulator for the FDNY training campus. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Leary donated over a dozen boats to the New Orleans Fire Department to aid in rescue efforts in future disasters and the foundation also rebuilt entire New Orleans firehouses.

There are hints of Leary everywhere on the show. His main character of Tommy Gavin is likely a nod to his friend Tommy Spencer, and another character, Jerry Reilly is likely a nod to his cousin Jerry Lucey. Tommy Gavin plays hockey with the FDNY team, and Leary is a huge hockey fan. In fact it is rumored that the fictitious 99 Engine is a nod to Wayne Gretzky's jersey number. Gavin was often seen wearing hockey-themed t-shirts (as well as Irish-themed tees). Former Boston Bruins player and Hockey Hall of Famer Cam Neely (now the team president) had a recurring role as a firefighter on the FDNY hockey team. The music on the show was mostly picked out by Leary's son.

The final episode was full of emotional shocks and should be nominated for an Emmy. Leary has been nominated in the past for several awards including Emmys, Golden Globes, Satellites, and Prism Awards for the show but something tells me the raw nature of the show kept him from winning, because deep down Hollywood hates people who tell the truth unless it's convenient for them and their agendas......just sayin'......

Farewell, 62 Truck. Thanks for 7 great seasons.

Under The Influence

With the passing of George Carlin last weekend, I started thinking of all the people who influenced my writing style and my humor over the years. I look at my sense of humor and my writing style as a symbiotic relationship. I like to make people laugh and I like to make people think. Humor is an easy way to put facts out to people in a mostly disarming way that gets them to think about what’s wrong with the world and keep them thinking about it by presenting it in a manner that’s less dry but still in-your-face. I love to make people laugh; it’s one of my own greatest personal satisfactions. I lack the wherewithal and temerity to be a standup comic, though, and instead focus my efforts to entertain through the written word. I envy comics for their ability to get on stage and do what they do while I peck away on a keyboard.

One of my school mates, a year behind me at dear old Robert W. Traip Academy in Kittery, Maine was Juston McKinney. Juston was a quiet dude in school, unlike me, and it kinda surprised me that he ended up in stand up. I never suspected that he had the talent hidden away. However, the man is hilarious, and it’s always a treat to catch him on TV. It’s ironic that while we both went into law enforcement after school, he went on to be a comic and I went on to write an obscure blog with a smaller audience than the Versus cable channel. Juston inspires me by showing me that a guy from a small Maine high school can make it with a little luck and a little perseverance. Please, I beg of you, go look him up and support his material.

But who were my inspirations to write, and write with such a skewed bent?

I already mentioned George Carlin, whose ability to call it as he saw it was amazing, as well as his vast command of the English language.

Hunter S. Thompson’s book “Generation of Swine” and his essay “Fear and Loathing on the Kindergarten Trail” were hugely impactful on me. Sarcastic and totally irreverent, always questioning authority and pointing out the absurdity of life, Thompson’s “gonzo journalism” showed me that you could be a writer, with a real job, and still be yourself. (UPDATE 2015: Turns out the essay was a parody of his style, done by The National Lampoon Magazine, entitled Fear and Loathing on the Nursery School Trail.)

Dennis Miller, of all the people on Saturday Night Live who did the weekly news send-ups, did it the best. I never cared much for Chevy Chase, Kevin Nealon was just okay, and Colin Quinn’s gravel voice grated my nerves. Norm MacDonald did a decent job, and the duo of Tina Fey and Jimmy Fallon was as close to the classic sarcasm and parody of Miller as SNL could ever hope for. For a news-junkie like me, to be able to mock the news is great fun.

Denis Leary is a master of the rant. I love a good rant. Ranting is an under-appreciated art. He’s also from the Boston area, and a lot of his references strike home with me. He loves hockey, the Red Sox, and coffee-flavored coffee.

Kevin Smith, director of some of the funniest movies I have ever seen. He understands the absurd, and perfects it. It’s hard to watch a Smith flick and not find a character in it that doesn’t remind you of someone you know. I love how he pays homage to his own heroes in his films, like Carlin and Stan Lee, and he’s also a hockey fan to boot.

The late Sam Kinison taught me that if the squeaky wheel gets the grease, then the screaming wheel gets the attention. His whole style was delivered with the fire of a holy roller revival meeting and it was so in-your-face that it simply blew me away.

And, oddly enough, I owe some measure of my writing influence to Kurt Vonnegut. In high school I read a couple of his novels, and you had to struggle to keep up with the timeline shifts, the characters, and even what the hell the story was even about…and anyone who has ever heard me try to tell a story in person knows that I’m the same way. Some of my blogs seem to amble on that way too...

So, who influenced you?