Denis R. O'neill
Author, Screenwriter & Producer
The Author’s New Book
The Author’s Last Book
The Author’s Fourth Book
The Author’s Third Book
The Author’s Second Book
Musings 2022
Rants, Riffs, Politics, People, Poetry and a Few Things Irish
Author’s Note
2022 was a year of living most dangerously. The pandemic marched on. The plague of political corruption and insurrection in the Grand Old Party sunk deeper roots. Putin invaded Ukraine with visions of a quick annexation and a restoration of a glorious Russian motherland centuries distant in the rearview mirror. The one monarch many of us loved and who most memorably reigned for seventy years, Elizabeth Windsor, died at the age of 96, depriving England and the world of a most elegant, caring and even keel. There was much to muse about.
The Queen may have left us, but her term for the year 1992, annus horribilis, returned with a vengeance. The weather got worse, as scientists warned. Droughts. Hurricanes. Heat domes. Species extinctions. American Republicans got stupider, less interested in the old American Way, more interested in America First, conspiracy, and White Supremacy; the New Republican way… Big Lie supplanting American pie.
The Supreme Court, currently laced with three Trump appointees, overturned (in Dobbs) a woman’s right to choose, and took aim at other conservative wet dreams involving affirmative action and voting rights. If they could deny women the right to vote, I’m sure they would, and might yet. It might explain why their favorability in the eyes of the public plummeted to 34%. Vaccinations got more efficacious, though not as many citizens got them because the virus of anti-vaxxers grew in disproportion to the soundness of the science.
CDC data revealed that those citizens, mostly Republicans, died at a much higher rate than Democrats in the same zip code once everyone had equal access to shots. Unfortunately, the rate of their demise was not fast enough to prevent the more deadly MAGA virus from attempting to do longer term damage to the body politic over the midterm elections. Miraculously, the predicted “red wave” hit a blue breakwater; political pandemic surrendered to national sanity, a self-generated vaccination few pundits believed we possessed. More on that in a moment.
The Kirkus Review:
“A peppery and unfailingly compelling set of reactions to one calamitous year.”
O’Neill offers a collection of thoughts and reflections on the year 2022.
At the start of this slim work of introspection focusing on the year 2022, the author reminds his readers just how momentous that year was: Russia invaded Ukraine as Republicans were entrenched in seemingly party-wide corruption. Roe v. Wade was overturned. Droughts, hurricanes, and heat domes proliferated, as did homegrown white supremacy movements. Queen Elizabeth II died. O’Neill takes a diaristic approach, adopting the tone of an informed and generally outraged outsider: “I have made my living as a screenwriter for thirty years and I can tell you if you ingested enough mushrooms, aided by a sufficiency of single malt, you might be able to invent some of the cockamamie storylines that played out in this weekend’s NFL quarterfinal playoffs,” he writes in a typical passage, “but no one would buy the script.”
A wide array of subjects attract his interest, from sports and politics (the war in Ukraine is a recurring motif) to popular entertainment (including a moving tribute to the comedienne Joan Rivers) to subjects touching on his treasured Irish heritage. As the dates of his entries progress, he reminisces about his beloved mother, the ravages of Covid-19, and the iniquities of the Donald Trump era. The bulleted format, and the author’s considerable writing abilities, will make these reflections gripping reading for all but the most partisan audiences. O’Neill has no patience for bigotry, the denial of science, or armed insurrections aiming to overthrow the United States government; bizarrely, all three of those things have vocal defenders in 2023 America, so his book won’t appeal to everybody. But even detractors should find something to enjoy in the more general humor tackling everything from baseball to bears.
A peppery and unfailingly compelling set of reactions to one calamitous year.
Sample Musings
October 1 — Dumbledore’s Birthday
Today is actor/singer Richard Harris’s birthday. He was born in Limerick, Ireland, in 1930. The last role he played on screen was Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts, the wizarding school created by JK Rowling in her Harry Potter series. He played an offscreen role in my own life, and because it is the first of October, and the fall foliage is showing its colors… here are a few tales about a most colorful man.
When my beloved second cousin, Irish painter Anna St. George, was a schoolgirl in Limerick, she’d descend from the family flat above the family pub – Charlie St. George – at 41 Parnell Street, to wish her father, Charlie St. George, a good morning. On many an occasion, Charlie was standing at the bar with Richard Harris. Both men were shirtless, standing over bowls of soapy hot water, shaving, drinking glasses of whiskey and stout, singing like songbirds after having been up all night. “Good morning Da, good morning, Richard,” Anna would chirp. “Good morning,” the men would say in unison, then Charlie would wave his hand as Dumbledore might later wave a wand. “Off you go now, Anna,” and she would disappear off to school.
Both Charlie and Richard played rugby for Young Munster, and Munster– one of Ireland’s four professional provincial teams. Charlie was a wing forward, and later a selector for Ireland’s national team. Richard’s playing days were cut short by tuberculosis, but in 1963 he played bad boy rugby player Frank Machin in the Lindsay Anderson directed “This Sporting Life.” Harris won a “Best Actor” nomination for his portrayal; the role was a natural fit. (He would later be nominated for a second “Best Actor” Academy Award in “The Field;” another good fit). Harris was a gifted athlete. In the coastal town of Kilkee, not far from Limerick, where he owned a home, there is a sculpture of him overlooking the Pollack Holes with a racket in hand. Richard was the town champ of a racket game played against a retaining wall at one end of the beach in Kilkee.
In 2000, when we filmed a Scottish, soccer-themed movie I had written, “A Shot at Glory” (starring Robert Duvall), we tried to get Richard to play the small role of manager of the mighty Glasgow Rangers. Unfortunately, he was tied up playing Dumbledore (luckily, we landed Brian Cox). Just before production began, the director of our film, Michael Corrente, was promoting another film of his at the Seattle Film Festival. He ran into Richard in a hotel lobby. He introduced himself, and said “Mr. Harris, my writer, Denis O’Neill, told me that Charlie St. George taught you how to drink.” Michael told me that Richard peered at him for the longest moment, dumbstruck. He pulled Michael close. A tear ran down his face. “Young man, you’re going to make me cry. Charlie St. George taught me about life.”
It made me feel pretty good, because in 1971, Jim Nachtwey and I spent three weeks in Charlie’s pub learning about life… and a more specific subset involving the pouring of a proper pint of Guinness. The night’s were long and joyful and filled with stories. Many of Richard Harris. (Duvall, who worked with Richard on a few films, told me a few more, though they are a little too colorful for even a fall foliage dispatch). Throughout his career, Richard and Charlie remained best mates. Oftentimes, when Richard came home between films, the two men would go off on a bender. The night he had his stroke that proved fatal, Charlie was getting dressed to join Richard at some Limerick banquet. Richard had phoned up earlier in the day requesting the pleasure of his old mate’s presence. To this day, in Charlie St. George Pub, in the last booth on the left (where Jim and I drank and sang after hours in the late winter of 1971, and where actor Russell Crowe recently hoisted a few), the walls are filled with rugby photographs of Charlie and Munster rugby exploits, and of Richard and his life-long exploits.
On the occasion of his birthday, I only wish we could bring Richard back in his Dumbledore backstory as leader and founder of the Order of the Phoenix — the organization dedicated to fighting evil Lord Voldemort, aka He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. We have two evil sorcerers in the world these days who shall not be named (for a change, in this space), but who live in Moscow and Mar a Lago. The world would be better off if Dumbledore, aka Richard Harris, came back and vanquished them both.
February 8 — Some of Republican Things
The ebb and flow of democracy and fascism makes for eternal dance partners, battling throughout history to see who will lead. The rise of the Nazi Party in Germany is the historic backdrop to the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music, from which the melody for “Some of Republican Things” is borrowed. Singer, guitarist, David Philp – with his 1978 punk single, “When the Tanks Roll Over Poland, Again” (The #1 punk song in England when it was released) – has his own artistic connective tissue to authoritarian aggression. I was a friend of Richard Rodgers’ daughter, Mary, and Mary’s son, Tod Beatty. My parents both fought the Nazis in Paris toward the end of WW II, as members of the OSS. My father was a Civil War historian and Lincoln scholar. James Andrews, the hero of his Civil War saga, Wild Train, gave his life at the end of a Confederate noose trying to preserve the union.
The battle for our own American democratic republic rages today.
Make no mistake it is a second civil war, without the fixed bayonets, so far, although flag poles and hockey sticks were wielded on the Capitol steps on Jan.6. Activity the Republican Party has just called “legitimate political discourse.” The same party that recruited and encouraged the white supremacist Proud Boys, Q-inanities, Trump dregs, and other fascist groups who launched the very insurrection. Even as the January 6 Commission uncovers new acts of lawlessness and sedition by Republicans. Some of Republican Things (policies and priorities), presented in this song satire, are already known. It is no time to be on the sidelines. Silence, Dr. King warned us, is the equivalent of consent.
Some of Republican Things
White men with long guns, children in cages,
Racism, lead pipes, Trumpian rages.
Gym Jordan flapping his Gym Jordan wings,
These are just some of Republican things.
Tax breaks for big shots, trickle-down lying,
Pander, philander, abet Putin spying.
The world is just waiting until Rudy sings,
These are just some of Republican things.
Clorox injections, UV intrusions,
Manafort steering Russian collusion
Voter suppression to block Blacks from voting,
These are just some of Republican things.
Chorus
When the Blacks vote,
when their votes count.
When I’m feeling sad,
I simply remember Republican Things,
Then I don’t feel so bad.
Hoaxes abounding from Covid to warming,
Stopping the steal by the Capital storming.
These are the sources of patriot springs,
These are just some of Republican things.
Shoot unarmed Black men, stop all abortions,
Beware of Democrats cutting meat portions.
The joy of Bill Barr flapping his wings,
These are just some of Republican things.
Fox news and Gaetz spews, Senate obstruction,
Sean Spencer’s press room tortured constructions.
Sarah and Kalie who fawned after Sean,
These are just some of Republican things.
Chorus
When the Blacks vote,
And their votes count.
When I ‘m feeling sad,
I simply remember Republican things,
Then I don’t feel so bad.
March 30 — Happy Birthday Mom
Whether my life was overcast or sunny, my mother, for the sixty years of it we shared, was a beacon of enlightenment, common sense and unconditional love. She was born in Minneapolis, on this March day in 1920, forever making her age easy to calculate.
In a world darkened by pandemic, a brutal invasion of Ukraine, global warming, and a declining IQ in large chunks of the American population, it is comforting to cling to a source of reliable goodness and good judgment – a compass I inherited by an accident of birth. Permit me three snapshots of Cornelia Rockwell O’Neill from a larger album, happily residing in my memory.
Mother at the age of 25, spent a year of her life, with my father, fighting fascism in and around Paris. She was an officer in the OSS. Their main job was to train and supply French Resistance forces (Maquis) with money and weapons so they could take down Nazis. She used to tell me how she would accompany Pop to some arrondissement in a car, at night. Before darting inside a dark house with a money belt around his waist, Pop would hand mother his revolver and tell her to shoot anyone who tried to get in the car. Mother, a recent graduate of Smith College and the University of Minnesota, would sit there, weapon in hand, until Pop returned. She must have thought some of the same things Ukrainian civilians are thinking these days, as they defend democracy at home and in Europe.
Later in life, she put her good musical ear to work in our home in Connecticut. A friend of hers, a Broadway producer, was looking for angels (backers) for a musical he was producing. Mother, who played the piano, asked to see the sheet music. She played a few tunes and invested $500 in Man of La Mancha. The next year, the same producer made the same trek
out to Greens Farms, now with a hit musical under his belt, telling mother he was developing another project with many of the same creative forces. “Can’t miss,” he told her. She asked again to play the sheet music to the show. She played three tunes and told the producer it was probably her, but she didn’t get it. Sorry. The show opened and closed in one night.
In the decade before that (the ‘50’s), she was busy having four boys in five years. One day, she was up in her dressing room, changing my infant brother’s diarrhea diaper. My older brother walked in and started joyfully punching holes in the plaster walls with a ball peen hammer. Just then, mother looked out the window and saw me, standing on the front seat of the family Ford Falcon, parked on a hill outside our Turkey Hill home. I was clutching the steering wheel two-handed after releasing the hand brake. I looked out the driver’s window and locked eyes with my mother as the car started to gather steam (toward a harmless landing in a meadow.)
Later in life, after describing this incident to me, I got to ask mother how she felt at that precise moment: number one son punching holes in her dressing room wall, number three son, ankles up, leaking diarrhea, number two son steering the family car down a hill. “I was so discouraged,” she told me.
I try to remember those very words when life seems overwhelming.
Mother has long since shuffled off, but the lantern of who she was and how
she led her life has never gone out. Lucky me. I think of her all the time, but
once a year it’s particularly fun to say, “Happy birthday, Mom.”
