Rahm in Ireland, YIKES!

March 28, 2018 by · Leave a Comment

A friend of mine in Galway sent me a link to an article in his local paper the other day. The story was about Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel visiting Ireland next week, and in particular Galway and how he was leading a group of 30 dignitaries with him. I almost puked at the thought of this phony, little twit grandstanding in Ireland as if he was someone who should be so honored. I have news for you Galway, that man is pure evil and has reigned over the complete destruction of Chicago’s good name over the last eight years as murder and shooting stats have risen in the blood soaked streets of this once great city. And what has Mayor Emanuel done to stem the tide of violence? Not a feckin’ thing.

Wake up Ireland, read my book! I worked for Rahm’s strongest challenger in the last election and have catalogued the crimes of the “tiny dancer”. If you want the inside story of dirty politics in Chicago, it’s all here in NOTHIN’S ON THE SQUARE. Available on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Nothins-Square-Mayoral-Campaign-History/dp/1619847205

Or if you’re looking for an autographed copy of the book, https://abbeyfealepress.com/

It’s a quick read and you will feel like the proverbial fly on the wall as you get a glimpse of the back room politics in action and the misdeeds of the “nine-fingered ballerina” known as Rahm.

But don’t take my word for it, listen to Chicago Tribune’s John Kass, who said, Good read by a great storyteller. Houli knows what he’s doing. This is a very good book. It was fascinating, you have to know about this book. He tells everything! He pisses people off that are friends of mine…and his! The stuff Houlihan puts out in the book, you can see how campaigns actually work. He’s an expert at that. I want you to go buy this book!

Or WGN Radio and Tribune columnist Rick Kogan, who called it, A deep dive into the wicked and wacky world of Chicago politics with a man who knows the score. An incisive, rollicking, intimate trip. Mike Houlihan is a raconteur of the first order. This is a remarkably tough look at his involvement in the last mayoral election. He minces no words here… taking on politicians, media types, and a lot of other folks. This is a unique and essential Chicago book.”

Or Tribune political columnist and political radio analyst Rick Pearson, who said it’s, Just a fun, rollicking ride of a book, which says a lot about Chicago politics. For someone who doesn’t live and breathe and follow politics it’s an excellent kind of primer, virtually no one is unscathed in this thing, I laughed when I first read it. It’s all about the various deals and side deals plus elements of a political campaign and of a street campaign. This is a good way to get into what politics IS, and how it’s still played and how it has always been played. It’s such a great inside look of truly how a campaign runs and how the campaign operatives are and the personalities that are involved.

And for those of you in Galway next week, when you see the “nine-digit midget” ask him if he’s read it, right before you shove his phony ass into the Galway Bay.

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Don’t Get Raunered!

February 25, 2018 by · Leave a Comment

Stop this weasel on election day! Take a Republican ballot and vote Jeanne Ives!

Sometimes we find ourselves in the midst of a firestorm and wonder which way to turn.

I’m excited about the candidacy of Jeanne Ives for Governor in the upcoming Republican primary on March 20th. She’s the only pro-life candidate in the race and is bringing a breath of honesty and grace to the millionaire pinball machine that make up our only other options. That’s why I organized a little party on March 5th at Reilly’s Daughter called “Irish for Ives”.

Last week I was invited to a luncheon at the Union League Club to meet Jeanne once again. My last visit to the Union League Club was about ten years ago when I was interviewed for membership.

I didn’t make the cut, somebody blackballed me. To quote from my book, Hooliganism: I’m not naïve enough to think I haven’t made enemies over the years. I’m an outspoken chronicler of hypocrisy and absurdity and I take pride in that. But which of my attributes can take the blame for my blackballing?

 I discussed this with my lovely wife and she reeled off a litany of my character traits that could have led to my ostracism. “Well, maybe it was because you always paid your bill late at the CAA. They could have said you’re a deadbeat…or a lush…or maybe it was… your fatness…you’re very crude…your clothes don’t fit…or the way you eat like a slob…or…” That’s quite enough, I said, I get the picture.

 Long story short, those anti-Catholic poseurs didn’t want me in their club. And yet there I was last week looking over my shoulder for those patrician fakers.

I got there early because I wanted to distribute some postcards and posters for the Irish for Ives event. At the coat check counter I encountered the same disdain as I had years earlier. “You can’t leave any literature here sir.”

I gathered up my stuff in umbrage and turned to my left to discover my old friend Rusty O’Toole checking his coat. He glanced at my posters incredulously, “Houli, are you a Republican?”

I am, and proud of it, been a Republican since 1985 when my old pal George Ryan helped me get a job after busting out in Gotham. It was easy, there was no initiation ceremony and no interview and they have never tried to blackball me like those jerks at The Union League Club.

But Rusty O’Toole was offended. If I wanted to waste another breath talking to him I would have told him how the Democratic party abandoned me when they embraced abortion on demand, homosexual marriage, transsexualism, and the suppression of Christianity in our schools, institutions, and supposedly free press.

But I really didn’t have time to debate this tool. His third cousin was once Attorney General and Rusty had been playing off that connection for over thirty years.

I asked the concierge the location of our event and headed to the elevator. Once again Rusty O’Toole approached me with his Union League pals, “What would your ancestors say if they knew you’d become a Republican?”

“Feck off!” I said, and headed for another elevator. Rusty was now playing the “Irish card”, and it really ticked me off.

What would my ancestors say? I thought about that. Well my ancestors were all Catholic when they came to this country. This was long before legalized abortion and the church has consistently denounced it as the very personification of evil. It was then, and still is considered the taking of a human life, murder.

Generations of Irish Americans have voted Democratic ever since the famine days, and when the progressive wing of the party took over in the late 1970’s, they kept right on doing it. I blame the Kennedys. Teddy sold his soul to the devil.

That night I had a dream. My great, great grandfather, Ferocious Frank O’Hooligan, from Kilrush, County Clare, Ireland, slid onto the stool next to me at the bar. He’s been in heaven for over a century and wanted to know how I was doing.

It was my connection to Frank that the Irish government considered when granting me citizenship a few years ago and I thanked him for that. His son, Frank Jr., was an Iron Worker in Chicago who fell to his death from a building in 1915, leaving my father an orphan at 11. My dad toughed it out with his two older policeman brothers, went on to great success, married my mom and fathered six sons and one girl, of which I am the youngest.

I had plenty to tell Ferocious Frank, but the words of Rusty O’Toole haunted me, “What will you say to your ancestors?”

So I ordered us both a pint and a shot of Irish whiskey and blurted it out, “Grandpa, I’ve been a Republican since 1985.”

He sipped his drink and smiled, “We don’t have politics in heaven, that’s why they call it heaven.”

I explained our “motley insurgency” to elect Jeanne Ives, and why I always take a Republican ballot by going over some of the sordid history of our country: the secularization of our society, the promotion of deviant lifestyles over the rest, the surrender to government in solving every problem, how our unions were infected with this disease and embraced it, forcing members to choose between the state or their religious beliefs, career politicians who lined their pockets while pretending to help the poor, political correctness destroying comedy for a generation, a mainstream media trying to shape the will of the American people with “fake news”, and…well you know the story.

Grandpa’s jaw was practically hitting the floor. “Rusty O’Toole, did you say? I knew his ancestors. I think somebody pissed in his gene pool! They took inbreeding to new heights. His family tree looks like a telephone pole.”

So what should I do, Grandpa?

“It’s obvious, lad. Jeanne Ives is our last chance! The only other candidates are left wing wacko billionaires! You’ve got to encourage all your friends to cross over, take a Republican ballot in the primary and vote for her before it’s too late!”

But he has tons of dough, Grandpa! He’s spreading lies about her in mailings and on TV and radio, some people are actually starting to believe Rauner’s bullshit!

Ferocious Frank O’Hooligan, drained his glass and slammed it on the bar.

“Don’t get Raunered! All he’s got is a checkbook, all Jeanne has is the truth. Who do you trust?”

And then he was gone. Maybe I can get him to show up at Reilly’s Daughter on Monday, March 5th for IRISH FOR IVES. Please join us, the craic will be mighty!

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Houli’s 69th Birthday!

December 16, 2017 by · 6 Comments

Censored Photo of Baby Houli getting a bath!

Today is my 69th birthday! These days a proclamation like that could get me into trouble. But it’s legit, I was born on December 16, 1948.

Soixante-neuf is how it’s pronounced in French, and the mere mention of that number has triggered wry smiles and raised eyebrows going all the way back to the Kama Sutra.

But I won’t dwell on that, not much anyway. It’s just another reminder that I’m an old fart, albeit an old fart with a helluva lot of going on. I did come across that old baby picture you see above of “Baby Houli”. Yeah, that was taken when the gal next door, Fiona, used to come over and help my mom with the kids. She used to give me a lot of special attention as the youngest of the seven kids.

My brothers tell me Fiona came over a lot and that I was her favorite…especially at bath time!

But enough of that ribaldry, I’d just like to say that I’m proud of my 69 years so far, in spite of the fact that I look like Santa Claus after he shaved. I’ve been married to a saint for almost 40 years, have two great sons, a lovely daughter-in-law and two rambunctious grandchildren who I love more than anything.  As a writer, actor, producer, journalist, radio personality, film festival founder, and flim-flam man I’m also doing okay with a career in show biz of almost 50 years.

Some folks say I’m shameless and it’s true. I’m a shameless self-promoter, but I’ve had to survive on my wits alone, unlike certain friends in the 19th Ward with three government pensions. You know who you are!

And while we’re on the subject of self-promotion, I feel compelled to plug my upcoming book signings of NOTHIN’S ON THE SQUARE. I’ll be at The Curragh Irish Pub this Sunday Dec. 17th from 4-7PM at 6705 N. Northwest Hwy in Edison Park, also at Fitzgerald’s Sidebar, 6615 Roosevelt Rd. in Berwyn on Thursday night Dec. 21st from 9-11PM with the band “Over the Side”, and for you last minute shoppers I’ll be at Mollie’s Public House 31 Forest in Riverside on Saturday, Dec. 23rd from 4-7PM. Would love to see you all and share Christmas cheer.

Speaking of Christmas, here’s my message for all of you. The other night on the street in Berwyn, (where I am the Baron), I was stopped by a Christmas angel and she asked me for dough, but I said no.

Mike Courtney, musician and owner of The Twisted Shamrock, invited me to join him and his band for a last minute bash to sell my book and share the stage with them at Fitzgerald’s this coming week. It would be another opportunity to pick up a few bucks so I leapt at it.

So Mike and I were standing in front of my building in Berwyn, as I gave him some posters for the gig. Caught up in our animated conversation we suddenly felt the presence of another in our midst on that cold December night.

A young woman stood just a few feet from us in the night looking cold. She looked tired and scared and was bundled up in a parka and pajama bottoms. “Can I help you?”, I asked, and then she went into her pitch, just got out of the hospital, got bad news, etc. could either of us spare a couple bucks? It was a familiar spiel and at first seemed like a scam so we declined.

But as she walked away I looked at her again and remembered that it was Christmas. The blessed mother was probably just about her age on a cold December night over two thousand years ago, and had been turned away with her husband Joseph as they searched for a place to give birth to the baby Jesus. As she drifted off into the darkness I immediately regretted not helping her. Later at home in bed I was haunted by her face and wished I could take that moment back. I said a prayer for that kid and vowed to help every panhandler I saw in the future. The next day I thought of her as one after another unfortunate souls hit me up in the car at streetlights all along Ogden Avenue. I handed over plenty of cash but the image of that young lady continues to haunt me.

So let’s never forget the message of every Christmas season and the good news Jesus brought with him when he told us to feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, and clothe the naked.

It’s a time of rejoicing, so reach into your pocket and spread the cheer to all who need it and especially remember “Baby Houli” when you clothe the naked!

Merry Christmas everybody!

-30-

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Nothin’s on the Square

August 14, 2017 by · 1 Comment

NEW BOOK PROVES POLITICS “AIN’T BEANBAG”

“NOTHIN’S ON THE SQUARE: 82 DAYS ON THE MAYORAL CAMPAIGN TRAIL, MAKING HISTORY IN CHICAGO 2015”

NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE AND WITH SELECTED RETAILERS.

Chicago, IL – July 30, 2017- Wanna know what really went on behind closed doors during the 2015 Campaign? Here it is, in all its ugly and hilarious glory. Chicagoland radio personality Mike Houlihan, former features columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times and The Irish American News, documents a behind-the-scenes look at the race for a new mayor.

Nothin’s on the Square tells the story of 82 days on the 2015 mayoral campaign trail, making history in Chicago with Chuy Garcia vs. Rahm Emanuel. “Nothin’s on the Square,” published by Abbeyfeale Press, is now available on Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble and other selected retailers.

Take a peek at the bare-knuckled back room brinkmanship and back-stabbing brew that propels Houlihan and company along the Chicago campaign trail, from empty candidate forums to boisterous corned beef bashes to the full Monty of both of Chicago’s St. Patrick’s Day Parades. Setting the scene with daily murder and mayhem stats from the bloody streets of the ghetto, Houlihan peels off the days of the calendar to expose history in the making, as upstart candidate Jesus “Chuy” Garcia clashes with millionaire mayor Rahm Emanuel, the evil incumbent burning through money to protect his ass and toss opponents in front of the bus. Like sausage and politics, it ain’t pretty, but this diary exposes the “warts and all” of a seldom seen world of local ward heelers in hand-to-hand combat in the trenches, with all the macabre humor and sensational characters that will forever define “Chicago politics”.

Rick Kogan of Chicago Tribune/WGN Radio calls it “A deep dive into the wicked and wacky world of Chicago politics with a man who knows the score. An incisive, rollicking, intimate trip.”

About Mike Houlihan

Mike Houlihan, former features columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, has just finished a 20-year run as columnist for The Irish American News. He’s Chairman of Hibernian Transmedia, a public charity dedicated to Irish and Irish American culture. He began his career over 44 years ago acting with The American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, CT performed on Broadway, Off-Broadway, on TV, and in indie features and major motion pictures. He’s also author of anthologies, “Hooliganism Stories” and “More Hooliganism Stories.” His adventures “Goin’ East on Ashland” came to life onstage in Chicago for six years running and his favorite Chicago Commandments are “Only Suckers Beef,” “Never Make Bail Under a Viaduct”, and now “Nothin’s on the Square”!

Book Launch: Tues, Aug. 22nd, 2017 at Cork & Kerry, 10614 S Western Ave, Chicago, 7:30PM. Thurs. Aug. 24th, Irish American Heritage Center, 4626 North Knox, Chicago, 7:30PM;

Mon. Aug. 28th, Beverly Art Center, 2407 W. 111th St, Chicago.7PM

Tues. Aug 29th, Duffy’s Tavern, 7513 W. Madison, Forest Park, Il. 7:30PM,

Houli will read from the book, and sign and sell copies of the book for a measly $14.95! Now available on Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble and other selected retailers. Limited Edition signed copies available at https://abbeyfealepress.com/

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Houli’s new book is on the street!

July 14, 2017 by · Leave a Comment

Hi everybody, it’s been awhile since I posted anything. Actually almost a year! But now I am back! Yeah, with a vengeance, ha ha. Wanted to let everybody know my new book, NOTHIN’S ON THE SQUARE, 82 Days on the Mayoral Campaign Trail, Making History in Chicago 2015, is now out and ready to read. You can get the book on Amazon, or do yourself a favor and go to http://abbeyfealepress.com and get a signed copy shipped by priority mail to you and yours. Here’s a little teaser, from the book.

PROLOGUE

I think I was in fifth or sixth grade, like 1959, when I met Mayor Richard J. Daley. I was standing by the side door of Christ the King Catholic Church on 93rd Street between Hamilton and Hoyne on the South Side of Chicago. I was with my crew of guys, loitering outside before nine o’clock Sunday mass started, spitting hockers over the bushes, hands in pockets, being wise guys, corner boys. A black car pulled up on 93rd Street and three men got out wearing suits and hats.

We gazed at them as if they were just a couple more parents heading to mass and then we were stunned by the presence of the Mayor of Chicago. To our young eyes he might as well have been e Lord God Almighty himself in our midst.

We were frozen with fear and looked at each other with our eyes bugging out. The  Mare doffed his hat as he skipped up the three steps to the doors and one of his guys held the door for him. I blurted out, “Hey Mare, how’s it goin’?”

“Hi ya fellas.”
Huge grins broke out on our faces as we all answered Hizzoner. “Hi Mayor!”
“Hiya Mayor Daley!”
“ Thanks for coming to our parish!”
“We’re White Sox fans!”
He gave a little wave as he walked through the door and all of us started going nuts, incredulous at what had just happened on the steps of CK, our parish.

His name was revered in all our homes. Our parents loved him. And so did we. He was an Irish Catholic from the South Side of Chicago. Richard J. Daley was one of us.

I was living in New York City when he died, but my world still stopped when I heard the news.

I missed the whole Mike Bilandic tenure and the Jane Byrne circus while living on the East Coast, but heard enough about her from my brother, Danny, who was sort of in her cabinet.

I had moved back to Chicago during the reign of Mayor Harold Washington, a colorful and folksy mayor who I enjoyed watching, until he died on Thanksgiving weekend of 1987. Eugene Sawyer served a couple of unremarkable years as Mayor but he never looked the part.

Then Daley’s son Richard M. Daley was elected in 1989 and served even longer than his dad, when he retired in 2011.

Chicago always felt right for me with a Daley on the Fifth Floor. Rich Daley certainly wasn’t anything like his old man, but he was still an Irish Catholic from the South Side.

Young Daley was a modern big city mayor, for better or worse. Shakman and a shitload of other crybabies had kinked up the old school pols that used to run this city, and many of them went to jail. But word was that Daley had cut a deal and the heir apparent was a short, cocky Clintonion, who would become Chicago’s First Jewish Mayor, Rahm Emanuel

He was not one of us.

***

Okay, pick up the book if you want to read what happens next! Here’s the back cover with some blurbs.

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September 2016 Irish American News Column

September 4, 2016 by · Leave a Comment
Mary Corcoran with 3 of her grand daughters on The Skinny & Houli Show.

Mary Corcoran with 3 of her grand daughters on The Skinny & Houli Show.

Hooliganism

By

Mike Houlihan

My pal Skinny Sheahan mocks me on the radio by telling folks “Houli has become a PI, a professional Irishman.”

But, I feel no shame in loving Ireland, the land of my ancestors, and I’m mighty proud to have founded Hibernian Transmedia NFP with my family, to promote and preserve Irish and Irish American culture. We’re currently producing three weekly Irish American radio programs, one of which stars Skinny on the air every week smooching Democrats butts.

Add to that a dozen or so projects in the works with Irish American film, music, and literature and I’m happy to have eejits like Skinny calling me a “PI” while scoffing at my endeavors, although I prefer the term “cultural warrior”.

I’ve certainly paid my dues over the last 40 odd years working with “American culture’’ until I finally decided that most modern American culture is crap, notwithstanding stellar talents like Kanye West and Miley Cyrus.

Irish culture saved me.

I think that’s because Irish culture is as old as the earth itself. Sure America has an interesting history, but Ireland is forever. And exploring our Irish culture is a never ending adventure when we can dive into recent stories like the Easter rebellion or go deep with stuff like St. Patrick’s dialogue in “The Wanderings of Oisin”.

Hibernian Transmedia is also involved with bringing Irish and Irish American filmmakers to Chicago with our 2nd Annual Irish American Movie Hooley, running at the Siskel Film Center September 30th through October 2nd.

I’ve said before how visiting Ireland is a “preview of heaven” and you all have an opportunity to see Ireland as never before when Fís na Fuiseoige or The Lark’s View, makes its Chicago premiere at the 2nd Annual Irish American Movie Hooley on Sunday October 2nd at the Gene Siskel Film Center. The film was shot extensively with drones across all four provinces and seasons in Ireland, and it marries the otherworldly Irish landscape with some of her greatest living poets speaking Irish.

And I say “her” because as we all know, Ireland is actually Kathleen Ni Houlihan.

Here’s what Film Ireland had to say: Fís na Fuiseoige, the directorial debut by west Kerry man Aodh Ó Coileáin brings to the fore the voluptuousness of the Irish language in both the history it carries, its connection to place and the differing understandings of life that it carries… Using the ever increasing quality of drone technology, Ó Coileáin offers us a slow contemplative picture of the Irish landscape seldom captured so evocatively before. With such stunning aerial cinematography, the timelessness of the Irish landscape is evoked as the camera reflects over places as diverse as the Iveragh Peninsula, the Donegal Gaeltacht, Glendalough amongst others. In each of these various locations, a contributor guides us through the connection of the strong links between the Irish language and place, a connection so strong that in ancient Ireland it even inspired its own literary tradition, ‘dinnseanchas’.

This literary tradition still exists on the fringes of Irish literary life as highlighted by the contributions by the Irish language poets in this documentary, who continue to pursue a knowledge of the land’s relationship with language. In their contributions, the Irish language is associated with a reverence to place itself that pays not only homage to the land but evokes a sense of this land as being timeless, as if its history is ever recurring.

Now what about this dinnseanchas in regards to the Southside Irish? Well there’s a connection there as well. The director, Aodh Ó Coileáin, also known as “Hughie” to some members of his family, spent several months in Mt. Greenwood at his Aunt Mary’s home back in the late eighties. Hugh was even a bartender at Gaelic Park in his salad days. No doubt Hugh experienced the unique sense of being “Southside Irish” and the personalities of our streets.

We were lucky enough to have Hugh’s aunt Mary on The Skinny & Houli Show last month, and we phoned Hugh around midnight in Ireland to talk up his film. Check out the podcast from Saturday August 20, 2016 at http://skinnyhouli.com

Take the opportunity to see Fís na Fuiseoige, or “The Lark’s View” on Sunday October 2nd at the Siskel Film Center. And you can meet Hughie there as well, he’s coming to Chicago with his wife and kids and after a weekend as a guest at the Hilton, they are all headed to Aunt Mary’s in Mt. Greenwood to get reacquainted with the dinnseanchas of the Southside of Chicago.

See this film, you will love it, and take the time to meet Hugh and his Aunt, Mary Corcoran, and their delightful family after the screening. Let’s all go for a pint at The Emerald Loop after the show!

Skinny’s buying!

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August 2016 Irish American News Column

September 4, 2016 by · Leave a Comment
Doctor Aidan MacCarthy from A Doctor's Sword

Doctor Aidan MacCarthy

Hooliganism

By

Mike Houlihan

 

“May you live in interesting times…” is an old apocryphal Chinese curse.

Looking around lately, you’d think we all might be on the wrong end of that curse. The world seems to be spinning faster and faster into a terrifying gyre of violence, racism, false prophets, mendacity and infanticide. And that’s just from the Democratic candidate!

But is this the end of western civilization? Or is it just the beginning of the end? The world keeps on turning and the best we can do is to hang on and pray to Almighty God for the best.

Yes, the world can be a very scary place, but it has always been so. Look back to World War II and the “greatest generation” and you wonder how they survived the horrors of that time and the emotional and physical terror of man’s inhumanity to man. What was the source of their obvious fortitude in those “interesting times?”

Faith, of course.

On Saturday night October 1st, The 2nd Annual Irish American Movie Hooley will screen A DOCTOR’S SWORD, the terrific film about an Irish doctor who survived just about every major horror of WWII.

Dr. Aidan MacCarthy was his name and this extraordinary film will leave you emotionally spent and so very proud to be Irish.

Tara Brady of the Irish Times said about the film. “The doctor was Aidan MacCarthy, one of a family of 10 children from Castletownbere, Co Cork. From his youth, MacCarthy proved a capable fellow: a champion swimmer and the recipient of a Muster senior medal for rugby, he graduated from Clongowes, then UCC, before departing for London in search of work.

Having signed up with the Royal Air Force, he survived the evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940, the fall of Singapore and four years in a Japanese POW camp on a diet of maggot and rice soup.

From there he was transported to Nagasaki – he was one of only 38 people out of 780 prisoners to make it after the cargo ship on which they were travelling was torpedoed – where he witnessed the atomic bombing of that city.

His efforts during World War II did not go unrecognised: he received a George Medal for pulling five men from the wreckage of an RAF bomber, an OBE and a Papal Medal. But being part of a more reticent generation, he seldom spoke of his experiences, or about the ancestral Japanese sword that still hangs in the family bar in Castletownbere

A Doctor’s Sword follows his daughter Nicola as she journeys to Japan to discover more about its original owner. It’s a tricky piece of detective work: some 60 years have elapsed since the blade came into her late father’s possession.

Director Gary Lennon makes terrific use of Aidan MacCarthy’s own testimony (recorded for an RTÉ radio documentary that aired just days after his death in 1995), archive footage and Ronan Coyle’s imaginative animation to recount the extraordinary events of the doctor’s life.

Even before the film closes in on Isao Kusuno, the 2nd lieutenant who previously owned the sword, we’re embroiled in a gripping saga, guided by Aidan MacCarthy’s calm, matter-of-fact narration; as capable as ever.”.

A DOCTOR’S SWORD was an emotional experience for me to watch and I am thrilled to be able to present this film to our audience at the Siskel Film Center on Saturday, October 1st at 8PM. The line that clinched it for me is when the BBC interviewer asks Dr. MacCarthy how he survived, “Well, it’s a combination really of my Irish Catholic heritage, my family background, and lots and lots of luck.”

Please join us in Chicago Sept. 30 through Oct. 2nd,  at The Siskel Film Center, for the 2nd Annual Irish American Movie Hooley, where you can meet the producer Bob Jackson and other filmmakers premiering their movies that weekend.

The Second Annual Irish American Movie Hooley is sponsored by 2 Gingers Irish Whiskey, The Emerald Loop, IAN, Hilton Chicago, Kitty O’Shea’s, and McCann’s Irish Oatmeal. For more information and updates about the schedule, go to moviehooley.org.

See you at the movies.

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July 2016 Irish American News Column

September 4, 2016 by · Leave a Comment
Finbar Spillane & Kevin Baggott star in BENEATH DISHEVELED STARS

Finbar Spillane & Kevin Baggott star in BENEATH DISHEVELED STARS

Hooligansim

by

Mike Houlihan

 

“When I go see a movie, I want to feel like I’m peeking through a keyhole…just gimme the truth as best you can.”

So says first generation Irish American filmmaker and writer Kevin Baggott. The disciple of the late novelist Nelson Algren, is an “enigmatic cat”, much like his dead mentor.Kevin won the “Best Actor” Award at the Winter Film Fest in NYC last February, (for “Why Do You Smell Like the Ocean?”), and he’s premiering his film BENEATH DISHEVELED STARS to kick off the 2nd Annual Irish American Movie Hooley on Sept. 30th in Chicago.

Baggott’s unique and funny odyssey, about an Irish American guy taking his mother’s ashes back to Ireland, is a tough adventure for this Brooklyn auteur, who plays the lead as well as directing this totally original story that walks a wobbly line between melancholy and zany. Baggott’s character, Bobby, a Brooklyn tenement super, has enough trouble surviving the wacky New York characters in his life, until he gets to Ireland and encounters Irish men and women of epic personalities and things quickly escalate to a mythical stage.

Starring with Kevin Baggott in “Beneath Disheveled Stars” are Nicole Roderick, Vic Martino, Danny Gilfeather, and Ireland’s own Colin Martin. The film also features a terrific original score by Estelle Bajou that transports the audience to Ireland as well as an Ireland of the mind.

Are they just “having some fun with the yank”, or are their motives more sinister? In the best spirit of indie film, Baggott is also the cinematographer of this haunting and comic road movie.

Baggott’s film is the cornerstone of a trio of Chicago premieres scheduled for the Hooley in the windy city this fall. The other two masterpieces are yet to be chosen, but will eventually join BENEATH DISHEVELED STARS on the marquee at the Gene Siskel Film Center, once again the home of the Annual Irish American Movie Hooley.

Kevin’s dad is from Galway and his mom from Cavan. He grew up in the Bronx, where his mother “used to beat me with the Irish Echo when I wouldn’t go to school.”

A street kid who could have easily wound up like Rocky Sullivan in the Cagney classic ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES, Kevin yearned for NYU Film School, but “those bastards wouldn’t let me in.”

He wound up at CCNY, put together his first film on 16 millimeter in Coney Island, The Village Voice raved, festivals clammered, and Baggott’s revenge was sweet. “So they had me going down to NYU every year…to show their students the film.”

Shot in  West Cork in the village of Kilcrohane, Baggott recruited his crew of three for BENEATH DISHEVELD STARS: his wife and a kid from a local farm they hired to work sound, and himself.Without a script he made it up as he went along, meeting the people of the town and recruiting them as characters in the film. They turned out to be terrific actors and briliant improvisers. Kevin told me, “Oscar Wilde says the Irish talk their books away.”

“Everybody we asked, ‘we’re doing this movie, we don’t have any money, we can’t pay you anything, would you like to be in it?” The response that came back was, “Sure I can do that!”

He shot for a month with “a camera the size of a box of cracker jacks” and then returned to NYC to film the beginning of the movie with his friends. It worked, it’s brilliant, and captures the Irish from a unique and funny perspective; that of a guy with “Ireland in his DNA” who’d been away too long.

BENEATH DISHEVELED STARS premiered at the Cork Film Festival in 2014 and the entire village of Kilcrohane turned up to see it, and loved it. “It’s nice hearing a lot of laughter.”

He’ll be hearing it again when the film makes its Chicago premiere at the 2nd Annual Irish American Movie Hooley on September 30th at the Gene Siskel Film Center.

Kevin gets diffident when asked what he hopes the audience will get out of BENEATH DISHEVELED STARS, and after a few hems and haws tells me, “I don’t know.” he said. “I hope they will all move back to Ireland!”

Please join us in Chicago Sept. 30 through Oct. 2nd for the 2nd Annual Irish American Movie Hooley, where you can meet Kevin Baggott and other filmmakers premiering their movies-and of course, you’ll likely feel like moving back to Ireland yourself!

The Second Annual Irish American Movie Hooley is sponsored by 2 Gingers Irish Whiskey, The Emerald Loop, IAN, Hilton Chicago, Kitty O’Shea’s, and McCann’s Irish Oatmeal. For more information and updates about the schedule, go to moviehooley.org.

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June 2016 Column from The Irish American News

June 3, 2016 by · Leave a Comment
Charlotte Houlihan

Charlotte Houlihan

Hooliganism

By

Mike Houlihan

I’ll admit it. I’m a naturally nosey person.

Even as a kid I loved rummaging through my mom’s purse to see what was in there. Nor was I averse to copping a finnski out of her purse while she was asleep. That type of perfidy came back to haunt me one drunken night in college when I was caught rifling purses in the cloak room of a pub. I was promptly taken out in the back alley and pummeled.

In the words of my late mother, “The bitter lesson is best taught.”

So I’ve abstained from searching ladies’ wallets since then. Until last weekend.

I was hanging out with my favorite granddaughter Charlotte Houlihan and we had planned an afternoon of fun at the aptly named “Monkey Island” in Melrose Park. That turned out to be a nightmare for me and nirvana for Charlotte as she ran wild with hundreds of other kids screaming and squealing as they climbed all over the slides, bouncy houses, and assorted obstacles.

Like any sophisticated six-year-old, Charlotte had brought her purse with her in the car when I picked her up that day. The next day as I glanced in the back seat I noticed she had left it behind.

I eyeballed this little pocket purse with zipper and Dooney and Bourke logos all over it and my old instincts kicked in. Of course there wouldn’t be any money or makeup in it so what in the world would a six-year-old girl keep in her purse?

I took it upstairs, opened it up, and spread the contents on my kitchen table.

Inside were a half-eaten pack of Watermelon flavored gum, two sticks left.

Some chicklets as well, three pieces.

A tiny little doll figurine about an inch high.

One piece of a tiny pair of black and white dice, made by Bicycle, the playing card company.

A little purple treasure chest, from a doll house, empty.

A miniature plastic cupcake, also obviously from a doll house.

A dried flower, purple, probably a lilac.

Two quarters, two nickels, and a dime.

That doesn’t sound like much, but the purse was so small with all these things jammed into it, which gave the diminutive purse the appearance of bounty.

It seemed to me to be the perfect metaphor for Charlotte.

Yes, she is small and very young but packed with character. She is after all, a first grader who is going to be seven in August as she constantly reminds me.

The next day we went through the contents of her purse together, and yes she had a story for each item. Finally, she pulled a small rubber band bracelet from the purse that I had overlooked and asked me, “Did you see my key to heaven?”

The bracelet was one she had made herself from her supply of tiny colored rubber bands interwoven to create a braid and attached was a small liturgical looking key.

The key to heaven, she called it.key to heaven

Now I know Charlotte is familiar with the concept of heaven because we talk about it often. It’s where my mother and father are, along with my brothers, and many other relatives who have died. It’s also where Jesus lives and she knows that too.

I took a photo of Charlotte’s key to heaven on her wrist and told her I was going to write about her purse and all the wonderful items she keeps in it.

She seemed flattered, “Are you going to say, ‘my granddaughter Charlotte’s purse?’”

I am, and I’m also going to say that I think MY key to heaven is my little darling Charlotte.

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May 2016 Column from The Irish American News

May 8, 2016 by · Leave a Comment

Capone's grave

Hooliganism

By

Mike Houlihan

I’ve been trying to limit my candor on Facebook ever since inadvertently insulting a friend’s mother.

But of course Facebook friends are not real friends. They are mostly for our own self-amusement whilst goofing off on the internet.

And the Internet can be a scary place. That’s why I never “accept” the friendship of those anonymous hot chicks who keep hitting on me. I know I’m gorgeous gals, but I ain’t that stupid.

However, the other day I got a friend request that taught me a valuable lesson.

I was amusing myself on Facebook, throwing bombs at Hillary and linking to weird news stories from wacky tabloids, when I get a friend request. Who’s this? Stephen Mullen, name doesn’t ring a bell, so I check out his page, he’s a young guy from Ireland. Well that’s good enough for me.

Mr. Mullen proceeds to tell me he is visiting Chicago from Tuam and his dad suggested he try to contact some old friends. “Would the names PJ O’Dea or The Notre Dame Inn mean anything to you?”

Would they? PJ O’Dea, “the man from Clare”, is a true GAA legend who played with 2 clubs in 11 cities and in four countries. He won his first county medal in 1939 and represented Clare in minor, junior, and senior hurling and also played senior football with Clare and with the Munster teams in 1951 and ’52. He won an All-Ireland hurling medal and then emigrated to the US where he played hurling and football in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and was the proprietor of the Notre Dame Inn here in Chicago for years. He’s been my friend for over 30 years and is the narrator of the Irish epic film, OUR IRISH COUSINS.

Long story short, I put Mr. Stephen Mullen in touch with Mary and PJ O’Dea and the next day I’m picking him up at the Metra station to bring him to meet the O’Dea’s on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

As I sat in the O’Dea’s living room and watched this young man tell the story of his father Frank from Knocknagur, and his fond memories of Mary and PJ, a Celtic connection was made. PJ had clippings for Stephen to bring back to Frank along with his best wishes. Later that day I took Stephen out to Queen of Heaven cemetery so he could visit the graves of his aunts Nell and Bridie and before dropping him back at his hotel I insisted we visit one more grave in Mt. Carmel cemetery.

On the way back he said, “My dad will be gobsmacked…it was a day of meeting extraordinary people like Mick Houlihan, PJ O’Dea and his wife Mary, the grave sites of my grand aunts, and to top it all off…along with all those great and fantastic people, the last place we visited was the grave of Al Capone!”

I figured if the kid was gonna see Chicagoland, might as well show him the sights.

Stephen’s father Frank sent me a note the other day.

When Stephen was going to Chicago for a few days over the Easter he asked me if there were any of my old friends that he might look up. I told him as it was almost 44 years since I was in Chicago, that many of the people I knew then would be quite elderly and some may even have passed on to their eternal reward.

       I mentioned a few names one of whom was PJ O’Dea and the Notre Dame Inn. PJ was so kind to me when I was in Chicago in 1972 and 73 as a college student on a J1 Visa.

        I hadn’t heard from PJ or had any contact with him since I left Chicago 43 years ago. Just imagine my amazement when Stephen, informed me that, thanks to you, he had located PJ, who was hale and hearty, and was able to visit with him and his good wife Mary.  Stephen video recorded PJ and I was absolutely thrilled to hear him recall some of the events in Chicago when I was there 44 years ago. I was amazed at how vividly he recalled some of the incidents that happened in the Notre Dame Inn and on the football field almost a lifetime ago.

       Mary, his wife, was the first person I met when I arrived in Chicago in ’72. It was such a coincidence as Mary is originally from my parish Kilconly in Co. Galway.

        I had such a brilliant time in Chicago, playing football with St Mels… and all the wonderful people I met – Mike Moran, Batty Boyle, Pat McGrath, Mike Scanlon, Mike O’Connor are a few that readily come to mind. I often think about them and wonder what became of them all?

       One of my outstanding memories was celebrating in the Notre Dame Inn, with PJ O’Dea -a Clare man, and all those crazy Limerick men, after Limerick winning the McCarthy Cup in ’73. Boy did they love their hurling!

       Please pass on my best wishes to PJ O’Dea and his lovely wife Mary. Though I never had any contact with them since I left Chicago in ’73 I never forgot their kindness to me all those years ago.

So there’s the lesson, a simple act of kindness goes a long, long way in making real friends. An Irish welcome can last forever.

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