Congratulations to the Colts. While their Championship is largely due to circumstance, officiating, and luck they still had to win the games and as such are deserving of that credit. Now, with a large mouthful of sour grapes I'm done with the NFL until April and the draft.
Of course my problem going forward is that we have nowhere to go from here. The Celtics have lost 16 straight games and are only seven losses away from the all time NBA record (with a five game west coast swing coming up...). As much as I want to I cannot, as a fan of the team who ended up with Chauncey Billups instead of Tim Duncan ten years ago (when the Celtics had a franchise record low 15 wins) put 100% of my hopes into the Greg Oden / Kevin Durant sweepstakes. Even if the C's don't win another game this season there is no guarantee (only about a 60% chance)) that they will end up with one of the first two picks. Such is life with a draft lottery.
The Bruins draw about as well as the Revolution and their play is reflective of that apathy. Granted I'm not a huge hockey fan, but I can't get behind a team that can give up three goals in less than 100 seconds like they did last night. Not to mention the NHL is still having serious trouble recovering from their strike and the subsequent fallout.
So lest I delve into an in depth analysis of BC women's tennis, I am going in a different direction.
Today, I'm going to blast a former Irish mafia boss with serious (?) connections to Whitey Bulger. To read John "Red" Shea's memoir (again ?) Rat Bastards and believe it (which you really can't) is to worship at the altar of the self proclaimed biggest badass and greatest overall human being in the history of badasses and human beings.
To be honest he lost me on page six where he explicitly details his first night after after being released from prison. His buddies from Southie, being the good ol' boys that they are, leave him a little present in his hotel room, "two Oriental girls." Rascist misnomers aside, the story degenerates quickly from that point culminating in a paragraph so inconceivable that I actually laughed out loud.
"Of course, after a bit I'd had enough of watching them and had to get into it. I worked on the older one first. After a half hour of that, I switched to the smaller one. She couldn't take it. She couldn't quite take me. I couldn't believe it. She was screaming like I was killing her. The older one said, 'Too big for her, mister. Too big.' The small one said, 'Me Chinese, you too big.' She tried to squirt this lubricant, and I knocked it away. I just continued to slam her. She was grimacing in pain, but she finally stopped screaming and yelling, 'Too big, too big!" I was slaughtering her. Fast slow, hard, soft, it didn't matter. I thought, What did they send me a virgin whore?"
The problems with this paragraph clearly abound, but the highlights for me are the following. After 12 years of prison with nothing but memories and of course the showers as entertainment (in which he vehemently denies any participation, of course) am I really supposed to believe that "Red" is such a sexual dynamo that he can watch two girls go out it, then have sex with one for half an hour without any sort of...incident? Pardon my phrasing but the guy hasn't had pussy in over a decade, nobody has that kind of control. Furthermore, as far as I know prostitues get paid to have sex, a lot of sex, and Shea is an Irish name. I guess anything is possible but even if he's hung like a zebra why the hell do I care? Does that have anything to do with his time in the mob, his drug dealing, his life story, anything at all other than his desire to tell the world about his allegedly prodigious package?
This story is an excellent example of my biggest problem with the book as a whole: there is no burden of proof. He could have made the whole thing up. I remember reading a criticism of Jame's Frey's A Million Little Pieces, which centered on the fact that since the entire story takes place in an anonymous environment (a rehabilitation clinic) there is no one in the world that can prove his outlandish tales true. The same can be said for Shea and Rat Bastards. Nearly everyone involved in his tales, from Bulger down the line, eiither flipped and testified or vanished off the face of the earth. He could claim that Whitey had a third hand growing out of his ass and there would be no one to refute it, there's no accountability.
I'm not debating the fact that he was a major player in the Irish Mob and that he worked closely with highest members therein. I'm sure all of that is true or he wouldn't have done 12 years in prision. What I question is the personal braggery inherent in every detail of the story.
He paints himself as the unflinching moral, ethical, and social compass for all of South Boston and the United States prison system. Everyone who flipped on Whitey (even though he had already ratted many of them to the FBI) for whatever reason is a useless piece of garbage who should be killed. Anyone who ever backed down from a fight isn't a man and should be viewed as a spineless weasel. Anyone who ever tried to stand up to him or fight him was cowed by his intimidation and ferocity, even the most hardened criminals in jail, because lest we forget, John Shea invented to the words bad and ass and it was his idea to put them next to each other.
From being the unquestioned leader in all of his multiple houses of correction to getting a getting a fellow inmate to quit his job rounding up stray cats on the prison grounds because animals don't like to be caged any more than humans (I shit you not, page 250, "Red" Shea drug dealer, ass kicker, lover of kittens) it was always the "Red" way or the wrong way. And of course the wrong way was always swiftly punished with Chuck Norris justice.
It just reeks of bullshit. I'm sure he dealt a lot of drugs, won a lot of fights, and that he really does despise anyone who ratted to keep themselves out of prison but you just can't read this book and believe it word for word. His last story from prison is a indicative punctuation mark to a series of tales that go from entertaining to wildly improbable. Shea was just 30 days from his release date after 12 long years, all he had to do was keep his nose clean and he was free. Of course a Cuban guy decides to call him a pussy, because clearly he was unaware that you don't mess with John Shea no matter what. In a shocking plot twist "Red" finds the guy and pounds him into the ground whispering into his ear in a very badass Van Damme kind of way, "A real pussy huh?" as the Cuban lay flat on his back with a broken jaw.
For his indiscretion Shea got to spend his last month, plus a few extra weeks for his behavior, in the hole. But our hero "Red" he wouldn't have it any other way.
" Sure enough, thirty days in the hole: narrow bunk, twenty-three hours a day lockdown, meals shoved at you through the door, no company, nothing. But I did what I had to do. If I didn't stand up to this Cuban, I'd be like Vinny Black and Dominic (guys who got out of jail on time because they are big bleeding vaginas who wouldn't fight to keep themselves in longer...). No matter when it happens, even if it's two minutes before I'm supposed to be released, no one is going to fuckin' treat me like a punk. If it means staying in jail, picking up a new case, or another ten years. so be it. I walked into prison a man, I am going to leave a man, no matter what. Can't let it happen, as I told these guys and as I proved. Practice what you preach."
Maybe I'm looking at this with too much rationality, but that's just stupid. If you've really kicked ass and taken names for 12 years you've proved your toughness and your worth. To just call this Cuban a punk, laugh in his face, or at least make him hit you first, makes a hell of a lot more sense than purposefully buying yourself more time in the joint.
I do have to give him credit, if he means all of this crap, then he is more set in his convictions than most other people, and that is probably to a fault. To take the rap when everyone around him was jumping off the sinking ship takes a serious amount of fortitude, and his rage at those who, in his mind failed to do the right thing, is somewhat understandable. While the actions that brought him to that point certainly aren't admirable, his ultimate unwavering support of what he believed in is, if only to a point.
The story of John Shea's life would make an interesting read, and I would like to see it someday. Unfortunately Rat Bastards skips too much of the story in favor of street morality lessons and and one overwhelming message: John Shea wants you to know that he is the hardest guy in the history of Boston's hardest neighborhood (of course everyone who could swear to that is conspicuously missing...) and if you question that undeniable fact he will come directly to your house to kick your ass too. And God help you if you tell on him for it...
9 comments:
I read the book and I second your opinion. If this guy truly lives up to his often stated creed that a man who backs down from a fight at any time or who "rats" on another person--no matter how evil and despicable the rattable behavior is--should be shunned, than I have to assume he dwells within a bubble that moves with him wherever he goes, insulating him from the contemptible rabble that makes up 99.99% of the rest of the population of the earth. Red, you're a punk, but not the jailhouse kind. You are the universal criminal type of grudge-holding, unforgiving, self-aggrandizing punk that good people created police forces to protect them from.
What Little Red fails to understand are there are maggots in this world. This tough guy, bad ass is a maggot. Stealing from others, drugging the kids in his beloved community, beating "outsiders" for walking "his streets" and generally living the life of a useless tool. He has had no redeaming values or worth since he was 8 years old. It's maggots like Red and Whitey that cause the people in Southie to live in misery.
I know Red, and I know the place he is from. You people have no clue. He is the real thing! Unlike all the pussies our society seems to admire these days. This Blog sucks!
I cannot agree enough with most of these comments. As I read this book, I was always hoping we would get to the point where he was remorseful and apologetic to what he did, especially to the innocent people. Even though it was printed in his book that he was remorseful, you just never felt that he was telling the truth. AND, if he was truthful about his upbringing, it really was NOT that bad ! I knew many young men who where raised by single mothers and their sisters who turned out to be good upstanding people in their teens and adulthood.
Red, you are a thug and convict. You will get NO sympathy from me and I hope that your children (god forbid you breed) never experience the violence on innocent people that you inflicted on others.
You should still be in jail.
Laughing hysterical, Totally agree. Enjoyed the blog post twelve times more then the book
Atleast he believes in something enough to publicly claim it. Don't you think after writing the book that all of his street ethics are more likely to be challenged by others? I'm pretty sure he wouldn't purposely set himself up for humiliation, so he must be pretty confident in the man he writes about being. Worry about yourselves.
I just finished the book, literally, 3 minutes ago. I immediately hit the web looking for other logical and intelligent human beings who could confirm my suspicions that this guy is full of crap. He's from Southie, he sold some drugs, he knew Whitey, but it is clear throughout the book that he needed a venue to stroke his own ego and make himself feel important. People only need to do that when they know they aren't that important. Your blog says everything I thought as I read the book.
I wonder if he has learned the real "code" of life: whether you like it or not, its every man for himself. Foolish to believe that other criminals would respect a "code". That's what makes them criminals. They don't respect the rules. He claims to be so wise and in control of everything all the time, yet he gave up his whole life because he believed the promises made by other criminals. Doesn't seem very street smart to me.
inasessred shea is a f-ing parasite. standing on a "moral code" after destroying countless lives and families with the drugs he helped distribute throughout boston. give me a break. he spent his life preying on the weak for profit. using intimidation tactics because he was to much of a tree stump to earn a respectable living.armani underwear... i'd like to stuff em down your f-ing throat red. you're not a man at all. you're just another punk from southie who undoubtedly will end up with a bullet in his head someday. the sooner the better..
first off red is a real man of honor!! none of you little cpu punks would dare to say theese things to his face...ever! second he went to jail for drugs not murder he shouldnt be sorry for anything but trusting a rat! you people could never make it on the street with your rat ways!!
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