Thursday, January 24, 2013

My Parents' Crew In 1969

From left, My Dad, My Mom, my "Aunt" Joanne, Tommy Cahill, Tommy Ryan.  The rest I don't know.
My Dad with his hair greased and flatted out.  My Mom at like 20 years old.  1969, right before all
the styles got big and sloppy and gross looking.  I love 70's style, but it's disgusting.  My dad got
lost in the 70's and never really made it back.  These two kept the 60's going pretty hard until I
was born but the lapels and collars just killed my old man and he was in sweatpants by 1982.

Tommy Cahill on the left was my Dad's bookmaking partner.  They took local action in the South Bronx, and
did some work with some capo named Louie Dome up in Harlem.  By the time Atari came out, they were no
longer friends due to some large sum of money that got shifted around wrong.  I think my Dad blamed
Tommy, but I was never sure what had happened and I'm not gonna pretend that my Dad wasn't a fuck-up
in his own right.  There might have been a fight that needed to happen that never did, and instead of
resolving the issue my Dad sat on it.  Tommy Ryan on the other hand, was my Dad's friend from way
back in the day, an original goofball (you can see it), and a good times kinda guy.  I don't remember
him at all, but my dad talked about him all the time.  My dad's favorite pretzels were Rold Gold
Pretzel Logs and every 500th log would invariably be bent or twisted and my dad would always
say that these pretzels looked like Tommy Ryan's penis.  He said that Tommy Ryan had to pee
straight up in the air so he had to stand like 3 feet away from the urinal, which is how my dad
explained away seeing Tommy's you-know-what in the first place.