Some must-see Irish TV - ‘Whitey’ Bulger and Sarah Michelle Gellar’s ‘Ringer’ - VIDEO

Talk about a whacky neighbor!  This guy whacks people for a living!

There is word out of Hollywood that an acclaimed sitcom writer has sold an idea for a TV sitcom to Twentieth Century Fox.  The premise?

Imagine you were living right next door to Whitey Bulger, South Boston killer extraordinaire, and didn’t know it.

Writer Peter Mehlman, whose has worked for Seinfeld, among other TV hits, lives in Santa Monica, California, the same place the legendary Irish godfather laid down roots while he was hiding from authorities.  Bulger lived in Santa Monica with his girlfriend as well as their dog, until they were busted earlier this year.

Mehlman has said Bulger will not be a character in the show but definitely inspired the idea.

“I can’t imagine how many times I walked past (Bulger),” Mehlman was recently quoted as saying.  “And he has 19 murders under his belt.”

The Bulger comedy is one of several upcoming Irish-themed TV shows. BBC America is planning a show about an Irish immigrant cop in the Five Points during the
Famine era, and Sarah Michelle Gellar is playing addict/stripper twin sisters Siobhan and Bridget in the series Ringer, which debuts on the CW Network September 13.

It makes you wonder what other forms of Irish American dysfunction and misery can be exploited for comedy. What follows are some other TV ideas that folks in
Hollywood might want to consider.

The Irish Odd Couple: It’s the 1970s, and two lads from Belfast have just landed in New York in the hopes of leaving their troubled pasts behind.  But what happens when the boys – one Protestant and the other Catholic – go looking for a place to live?  They end up forced to share a one-room apartment in Hell’s Kitchen.

“It’s hell alright,” Liam, the Catholic fellow, says. “And I don’t mean all the
crime and drugs.”

Billy, the Protestant, counters, “It cold be worse.”

“How?” asks Liam.

“We could get another Paddy Papist in here.”

Don’t miss the episode when the boys get confused by all the explosions on the Fourth of July, as well as the heart-wrenching season finale when Billy and Liam finally become pals, since both agree that gays should not march in the St. Patrick’s Day parade.

The West Wing’s Awake: In this political comedy the Republic of Ireland needs a new president, and when voters look around and see what Irish-born folks have done to the country, they pass a law outlawing Irish-born folks from the position for 20 years.  (No Irish need apply, indeed.)

Hungry for new leadership, the Irish turn to a member of the diaspora – a celebrity who once played a president on television, and whose mother was born in Ireland.
But what seems like a new dawn turns into a culture-clash nightmare.

“Where’s the corned beef?” the new president proclaims during his inaugural address.

Things only get worse when the new president makes an appearance at a football match -- wearing a New England Patriots shirt and Notre Dame cap.

But things soon turn around for the new president when a Chinese bank forecloses on the presidential residence in Phoenix Park – showing the Irish people that this man of wealth and celebrity can sympathize with their problems.

The season cliffhanger has the new Irish president formulating a group of 21st century Fenians and pondering an invasion of China.

“This is finally our chance to learn from the mistakes of Canada,” the president intones solemnly.

Holy Crap!:  It’s bad enough a priest tried to put the moves on Kevin when he was growing up in the big city. He’s finally put the past behind him and moved to a new parish in the suburbs.

So he doesn’t think much of it when the parish is about to get a new pastor.
“Probably some dude from India,” he quips.

Not quite.  It’s the pervy priest from his past! It seems he’s simply been transferred from the big city to the burbs while the big wigs at the archdiocese sort out decades of abuse charges against the man who’s been called Father Feelgood.

“I’m not going into the confessional with that guy!” Kevin declares at one point.
The wacky next door neighbor (who is not a gangster on the run) adds, “Boy, he really wanted you to have a Good Friday, didn’t he.”

It’s Always Sunny in Butte, Montana: Pat, a rugged coal miner, wants his beloved daughter Rosie to be a respectable nurse or a schoolteacher.  But take one guess what she wants to be?

Hint, hint: She wants a lantern and a giant pick for her 18th birthday.
Is it any wonder why the Irish are so popular on TV?



(Contact “Sidewalks” at tomdeignan@earthlink.net or facebook.com/tomdeignan)

‘Irishmen Who Are Drunks’ - a reaction to FDNY's discriminatory remarks

As the 10th anniversary of 9/11 looms, you see many stories these days about firefighters and their families, and how they are coping with the loss of loved ones and the passage of time since that terrible day.

But that’s not all you will hear about the FDNY these days.  For the past several weeks, Brooklyn Federal Court has been the setting for a federal discrimination trial against the New York City fire department.

The feds are looking into allegations that the FDNY discriminates against minority firefighters. So it is interesting that in this setting, one of the most blatantly anti-Irish statements I’ve ever heard was not only muttered, but entered into the public record.

Worse, there was not a peep from anyone that it was at least ironic that Irish stereotypes were being peddled at a -- wait for it! -- anti-racism trial.

There was no outrage from an Irish American politician or the national AOH, or even the Emerald Society of the FDNY.  Nothing.

These comments were made as the trial against the FDNY got underway earlier this month.  The topic of the day was the allegation that white FDNY candidates with criminal backgrounds seemed to be getting much more lenient treatment than minority candidates with similarly troubled pasts.

Former assistant commissioner for FDNY personnel Patricia Kavaler testified that FDNY big wigs might call members of a review board to vouch for white candidates with checkered pasts.

“You’re dealing with a lot of Irishmen who are drunks and they get into bar fights and they get arrested and they get arrested again.  They fight, they sock their girlfriends…they get arrested because they fought with the police when they got arrested.  This is boys being boys.  That type of thing.”

How does one even begin to deal with this?

First off, we have to let Kavaler off the hook.  It appears she was simply relaying what she had heard someone else say.  She apparently did not say these words herself.

However, since these drunken Irish comments were reported in exactly one news outlet -- the New York Daily News -- there were no follow-up questions seeking clarification.

So, let’s say Kavaler heard some other FDNY bigwig say this.  Isn’t this nearly as newsworthy as anti-black comments?

Look, I am not naïve.  Are there Irish members of the FDNY who like to drink?  I know several.  Do the Irish in general like to drink?

Often, Irish folks themselves put this message out.  When basketball great and Queens native Chris

Mullin was recently inducted into the NBA Hall of Fame, several stories linked his alcoholism with his Irish American upbringing.

Watch any episode of Denis Leary’s FDNY show Rescue Me and it will probably confirm every existing stereotypes.

Okay.  Fine.  So, let’s pretend the FDNY bigwig who claimed, “You’re dealing with a lot of Irishmen who are drunks,” is named Kevin O’Donovan, or something similarly Hibernian.  This is still inexcusable.

In a forum dedicated to correcting the wrongs of racial or ethnic bias, there is no way comments about drunken, brawling Irishmen should be allowed to pass unremarked upon.

Unless, that is, we are then going to discuss Mafia Italians and dumb Pollocks and cheap Jews or any other lame racial/ethnic/religious stereotype.

That all being said, it could be that the FDNY has a serious problem.  It simply does not look good that, in a city like New York, only 3% of firefighters are African American.

It is true that it is very much a job passed from father to son, which gives New York’s white ethnic groups a leg up, and it’s hard to pass a law against that.
It’s also true that other major cities have found ways to diversify their firefighting ranks. And that presumably goes for gender also.

We’ll let New York Post gossip columnist Cindy Adams have the last word. She recently lamented that the number of female firefighters has stayed at around 30 for the past several decades because the FDNY is “an old Irish club of sexists.”

It begs the question -- how can Irish firefighters find time to be sexist when they are drinking and brawling and getting arrested all the time?

(Contact “Sidewalks” at tomdeignan@earthlink.net or facebook.com/tomdeignan)