Yeah I think Steve Dahl was the pet rock guy, right? Also
did the disco demolition night at Comiskey Park. Someone gave me a tape once (I later taped over it) of Steve the day
after the riot happened at disco demolition night; his voice
was all raspy from all the stuff going on. Think he also had
a partner named Gary Meyer.
We will do this as a Friday column ping and also a Friday
show ping. Not sure but I think Howie may be on vacation
next week; someone on SaveWRKO.com had said they heard
WRKO’s Reese Hopkins say he’d be filling in for Howie
“the week of the 21st”...
Column.
Can Mumbles get up from this tumble?
By Howie Carr | Friday, April 18, 2008 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
Disability-pension fraud in the city of Boston? Round up the usual suspects!
Like Claude Rains in “Casablanca,” I am shocked, shocked. Actually, it is stunning, but only that finally some local prosecutors are showing even the slightest interest in going after the political kleptocracy that is bankrupting this state.
In Boston, you have the district attorney, the attorney general, and the U.S. attorney - or, as they are known on the street: See No, Hear No, and Speak No Evil. The U.S. attorney - Speak No Evil - finally realized he had no choice but to go after the Boston Fire Department.
First the cops with their steroids and protection rackets, now the faking jakes. Next you’ll be telling me that Mayor Mumbles Menino is taking “contributions” from city contractors.
How bad is it? You remember the old TV spot with the old lady screaming, “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” Imagine dozens - scores - of firefighters chanting as one:
“I’ve fallen - on the one day that I was working at a higher rank - and I can’t get up!”
This is nothing new at City Hall, of course. Mumbles Menino is in his fourth term as mayor. The last time we had a mayor in his fourth term it was Kevin White, and his political minions, at least a few of whom were ex-cons, were doing the old slip ’n’ fall in then-unprecedented numbers.
I remember one high-ranking hack from Brighton named Squawker McNeil, who claimed he had slipped on a patch of ice - inside City Hall. The joke was, knowing Squawker, he probably tripped on an ice cube. Everybody at City Hall signed off on his phony-baloney pension because, well, they didn’t want him squawking. He went to the can and then got a job at the dog track in Raynham.
Now we have a different mayor and a different “probe,” and Mumbles finds himself in an odd position.
He immediately announced yesterday he’s not a target of the grand jury - strange, because no one had suggested he was.
That’s the good news for Mumbles. The bad news is that, as we all know, many jakes moonlight as tradesmen - painters, electricians, plumbers. Mostly plumbers. Plumbers interact a lot with the city’s Inspectional Services Department, also known as the Building Department, another city agency prone to the occasional blizzard of FBI subpoenas.
Now, if you are a crooked Boston firefighter, and you are looking at the prospect not only of losing your freedom, but also your pension, do you think you might be inclined to trade up? And once the dominoes start falling inside City Hall, you never know how many will tumble.
I noticed an old byline on the story yesterday. The Boring Broadsheet brought back one of the guys who used to chase Kevin White - an old reporter reprising an old scandal, you might say. It’s the City Hall Scandal Reunion Tour ’08. Next they’ll be peddling T-shirts: “I Faked an Accident and All I Got Was This $8,000-a-month Pension.”
And Mumbles has to run for re-election next year.
But you can’t beat somebody, even Mumbles, with nobody, which is what Councilor Mike Flaherty is. How can Baby Flats run on a scandal in the hackerama - those are his peeps, after all, starting with Daddy Flats, the judge, and Sister Flats, the clerk.
If I am the U.S. attorney, this morning I am putting up a new framed photograph in the grand-jury room. It will be a picture of Jackie Bulger leaving the courthouse, on his way to Devens, stripped of his state pension. That’ll put the fear of God into these crooked firefighters.
You know what they say about hacks who’ve been stripped of their pensions? They’ve fallen, and they can’t get up.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1087962
The show has changed quite a bit in the last 27 or 28 years.