The Last of the Red Hot Kennedy Boyz

"Was That Ted Kennedy's Car I Just Saw Sail Off the Edge of That Bridge?"
I remember a time when I was much younger when Teddy Kennedy was being berated and perhaps arrested and taken to trial as a murderer. That was during one of those wild Kennedy party weekends at the Kennedys's fabulous Martha's Vineyard property--hey, a ton of booze, hittin' on some of the office gals, like that little Mary Jo Kopechne, for instance. Remember the Teddy Kennedy jokes?--"Hey, gals, do any of you need a ride home?" "No thank you, Teddy."

There they are: Bootlegger Joe's pride & joys: John Boy & Bobby--oh, and there's Teddy, too.

I mean, WOW, look at Teddy's life. The youngest and weakest of Bootlegger Joe's male heirs--his favorite Smilin' Joe Junior--had to sacrifice his life fightin' the Japs in the Pacific--Bootlegger Joe tried to get JFK killed, too, on PT-109--remember? Anyway, Bootlegger Joe got a war hero out of that war alive so then he could run him for a Massachusett's political office--Bootlegger Joe--and old filthy ass Honeyfitzsimmons, Joe's crooked-as-a-snake-at-night father in law, taught him well, thought of him highly enough to give him Mama Rose as his bedmate, that precious saint of a dumbass spoiled-ass little Catholic virgin girl who Bootlegger Joe got and kept her knocked up enough where he, a vim and vigorous man, had to take his pleasures with Hollywood starlets for threesomes and Gloria Swanson for his main fuck--Why little Teddy's sat at the big dining table in the Shanty East Bay Boston mansion while Bootlegger Joe was bangin' Gloria Swanson in his private den right above the dining table, and they said Gloria was quite a screamer, too. And saintly Mama Rose took it like the fine little Catholic virgin she remained even after having all those Kennedy special children--oops, we forgot about Bootlegger Joe's damaged-goods daughter--the one he put through several lobotomies. So that's what Teddy grew up in. I remember when they put Teddy down as the dumbest of the bunch. Remember the joke about how Teddy couldn't pass any bar, but he couldn't especially pass the State of Massachusetts bar? And one of Teddy's sons was damaged goods, too; a cripple, one leg; plus is his son Patrick, Patrick the drunk (remember, drove his BMW into a tree?)?; plus his ex-wife, Joanie, remember her?, was a stone alcoholic--but then, by then, so was Teddy.

And now Teddy, diagnosed with brain cancer (he ain't got long--my brother died of the same thing--found out he had it at the end of December and he was dead by the first of April), is getting the most sympathy he's ever gotten in his second-fiddle Kennedy boy life (I hate hyphenating, so excuse me my fractured and chop-liver-fied compound adjectives). Why the Dumbocrats are now trotting Teddy out as the "Liberal" darling of the Senate--the man on the move for progressive politics and government--whooooooooo, Nellie, can I take all the bullshit being shoveled out there into Teddy's rose garden of doing good for mankind. Remember when Teddy was bar hopping all over West Palm Beach with his worthless nephew who after a night of pub crawling with Uncle Teddy brought the stupid girl to the Kennedy mansion and then raped her out on the Kennedy private beachfront (only the best for Bootlegger Joe's heirs)?

Ah but Teddy lived the good life. Sailing lately with his new wife, his younger more refrained wife.... Where's Joanie these days? And the one-legged son, Teddy, Jr., isn't it, where's he?
I'm so out of the Kennedys these days--like Gore Vidal said about G.W. Bush being a nonsubject with him now--that's kind'a how I feel about Teddy Kennedy's rather sad I'll admit ending--though you notice, Teddy's getting the very best in health care--I mean, he got a helicopter to fly him off Cape Cod where they had no facilities for such a prob as Teddy had--so they flew him into Massachusetts General. Can you imagine if you'd'a had a seizure like Teddy--and with your health care--like maybe your HMO won't even pay for such diagnostics even--and then they'll say it was your fault--I mean look at Uncle Teddy--the pig jowls, the blubber hanging around his neck--I mean he's been looking ready for a slab for several months now. For some strange reason, I can't think of Uncle Teddy as a flaming bleeding-heart liberal. White Trash Irish Lucky Bastard--OK, maybe that.... I am so cruel, though I'm sure Teddy could be cruel, too, if you tried to exceed his name and power--God help you if Teddy Kennedy was your only hope at rescue. Mary Jo Kopechne can testify to that.


1969 wasn't such a good year for me either--I got myself involved in Uncle Teddy-type skullduggeries. That's the year that fall I took a little trip up to Cape Cod--passing through Hyannis on my way to a party up in Provincetown--I was staying with a good friend and his wife in South Wellfleet. "Did you hear about Teddy Kennedy?" my friend asked when he came in from clam digging with the newspapers. And what Teddy Kennedy did was in the news for the rest of my stay on Cape Cod, then going back through Hyannis and noticing the hubbub around the Kennedy compound and then as the bus went around Wood's Hole and the talk on the bus was all about how it was over there, pointing across the ferry dock over toward Martha's Vineyard sailing off the shore in the foggy distance, where it had all happened. "You know they were all drunk. You know how the Kennedys drink." And then back in New York City I remember the hearings on the matter and how dramatic and sorry Uncle Teddy was for his SINS, boo hoo hoo, and think of his reputation, and, shit, that son of a bitch ended up not even losing sleep over the incident--NOT GUILTY of any wrongdoing--Mary Jo had killed herself willingly. Case closed. Uncle Teddy's reelected with good cheer and more booze and Joanie, drunk and lonely, sticks by her man, though a few years later the good Uncle Teddy wouldn't stick by her--when she was getting drunk-driving arrested every other day, Teddy dumped her and was soon gallivanting around with a younger set of babes.

Now the Dead Kennedys can add another song to their repertoire. I once had a chance at love with a sister of a Dead Kennedy--she liked me a lot and she was cute as a bug in the pervertable rug, but, like the failed actor I am, I totally missed my cues on that one, blew my lines, and never got to try out for her leading man ever again.

1969, however, was a great year for rock 'n roll, for Slim Harpo, the New York Mets, and later, the New York Knicks. I cheated on my sweet wife at least three times in 1969--unlike Uncle Teddy Kennedy, I'm honest about it--once with my creative services boss (we were going to Woodstock together and the rains and traffic forced us to pull into a Harrison, New York, motel and have our own Woodstock); another time with one of my wife's best friends; and the third time up on Cape Cod with my good friend's wife--we'd just scrambled out our passionate clutches as we heard him coming in from clam digging with the newspapers and the news of Uncle Teddy's Chappaquiddick adventures.

When in Massachusetts, do as Uncle Teddy and the Kennedy boyz, I say.

theverycruelgrowlingwolf
for The Daily Growler

How the Steinbrenners Are Dumbasses When It Comes to Baseball--Joe Girardi Is Currently Talking to a Beer Distributor in Northern New Jersey; It May Be His Next Job:
American League

American League East
Team	W	L	Pct.	GB	Home	Road	East	Cent.	West	L10	Strk
Boston	29	19	.604	-	19-5	10-14	8-11	10-5	8-3	6-4	W 5
Tampa Bay	27	19	.587	1	16-8	11-11	18-12	2-3	6-2	7-3	W 2
Baltimore	24	20	.545	3	14-7	10-13	9-7	5-4	8-8	8-2	W 1
Toronto	23	24	.489	5½	10-10	13-14	7-10	11-7	3-6	6-4	L 1
N.Y. Yankees	20	25	.444	7½	9-12	11-13	10-12	7-11	3-0	3-7	L 4