JOCK MAHONEY - MY HERO'S IMAGE SHATTERED

This is Jock Mahoney in a pose from the TV western series, The Range Rider which ran from 1951 to 1953, and was oft-repeated when I was a young boy in the late 1950s/early 1960s.

It was the very first television western show that I recall and I loved Jock Mahoney. He was tall, athletic and handsome. I wanted to be him. He was my first hero.

He made over sixty feature films, including two outings as Tarzan and many TV appearances. He was a sportsman and a stuntman as well as an actor.

Sixty years on, I still have fond memories of watching that show but this weekend I read something that shattered my admiration for him.

Oscar-winner, Sally Field has written a book about her life. The Times Magazine - 15 September 2018 - ran a feature on In Pieces written by Helena de Bertodano who interviewed Fields. The two-time Academy Award winner (Norma Rae in 1980; Places In The Heart in 1985) has had an outstanding career and continues to deliver excellent performances on stage and screen.

Jock Mahoney was Sally Field's stepfather and the Times feature describes Sally as a very young girl being asked to walk on Mahoney's back and then his front: "I walked on his back," Fields is quoted, "until he rolled me over, commanding me to keep going. One foot in front of the other up his chest I tiptoed, my nightgown hanging loose as his hands slid over me legs, then moved up." She continues: "I'd turn my feet around, walking toward his stomach to be out of reach and he'd whisper instructions, "Lower". I walked on this much loved non-father of mine, carefully trying to avoid where he was aiming my feet....."

Later in the feature, around 1960, when Field was about fourteen, there is a description of a very creepy, sordid incident in a bathroom with Mahoney playing sexual games, making lewd advances on Field. "He loved me enough not to invade me. He never invaded me."

I found all of this very shocking.

Sally Field may well do the rounds of chat shows and media interviews so that we can hear her talk as much or as little as she chooses about her childhood with Jock Mahoney.

He was once my biggest hero but no more.

MINOR INCIDENT BETWEEN MY MOTHER AND THE REVEREND IAN PAISLEY

This happened sometime in the early 1970s in our Belfast living room.


In an uncharacteristic burst of anger,
my mother once took off her slipper,
concentrated hard, took careful aim
and let fly at the television set.

On impact, the vase on top wobbled,
we kids tranced between gasp and cough,
and the reason for mother's missile -
Ian Paisley shouting his mouth off.

THE RETURN OF A DOZEN QUESTIONS

Earlier this year, I ran a series of questionnaires with creative people from Northern Ireland. I am so grateful to each and every one that took part. The motive? To attract visitors to my blog, to provide links to anything participants want to promote and to enjoy the answers to the 12 questions.

I am developing the next list of invitees and hope to share their comments on here in due course.

For the time being, I am sticking with my interest in Northern Ireland connections.

In the meantime, here's the premise and a list of the kindly souls who took part in the last series.

(Search the blog for individual answers).

If anyone would like to take part, please copy/paste the questions, add your answers and any promotional links and send to @joecushnan@aol.com And thank you one and all.

A DOZEN QUESTIONS

(NO.21)

The Pivot Questionnaire comprises 10 questions. I have seen it used on the television show Inside The Actor's Studio, presented by James Lipton. Apparently Proust was the original inspiration. The modern questions originated on a French TV show called Bouillon de Culture, hosted by Bernard Pivot. I have expanded the questions to 12.

  

(For the time being, this idea is restricted to Northern Ireland's creative artists in any field, literature, music, broadcasting, etc. If you are one and are interested in taking part as well as promoting your work, please get in touch via joecushnan@aol.com)

The 12 questions:

1. What is your favourite word?

2. What is your least favourite word?

3. What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally? 

4. What turns you off?

5. What is your favourite song?

6. What is your favourite film? 

7. What is your favourite curse word?

8. What sound or noise do you love?

9. What sound or noise do you hate? 

10. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? 

11. What profession would you not like to do?

12. If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?

Here's a list of the people featured in the previous series. Use the search box to read their answers.

Singer/songwriter Mandy Bingham – 17 January 2018

Poet Colin Dardis – 18 January 2018

Writer & Independent Researcher Anne-Marie Quigg – 19 January 2018

Broadcaster Gerry Kelly - 20 January 2018

Writer George Larmour – 22 January 2018

Journalist/writer Geoff Hill – 23 January 2018

Singer/Songwriter Janet Henry - 24 January 2018

Broadcaster Lynette Fay - 25 January 2018

Actor Michael Smiley – 26 January 2018

Singer/songwriter Paddy Nash – 27 January 2018

Singer/songwriter Edelle cMMahon – 29 January 2018

Broadcaster Kathy Clugston – 30 January 2018

Singer/songwriter Brigid O’Neill – 31 January 2018

Singer/songwriter Stephen Dunwoody – 1 February 2018

Writer Colin Breen – 2 February 2018

Singer Mairead Healy – 3 February 2018

Harpist/comedian Ursula Burns – 5 February 2018

Actor Charlie Lawson - 6 February 2018

Singer/songwriter Simon Murphy - 7 February 2018

Singer/songwriter Anthony Toner - 8 February

Radio presenter Stephen Clements – 2 March 2018

CARRY ON CARRYING

Carrying

A phone,

A bottle of water,

A bag of dog shit,

A sausage roll,

An e-cigarette,

A handbag,

A man-bag,

A carrier bag.

Carriers

On the move,

Wishing for a third hand.

Carry on Carrying,

Sid James is laughing.

OPEN FOR WRITING COMMISSIONS 2018/2019

Open for Writing Commissions 2018/2019

JOE CUSHNAN

FREELANCE WRITER/MEDIA CONTRIBUTOR

        joecushnan@aol.com          @JoeCushnan

SELECTED PUBLISHED FEATURES (SAMPLES AVAILABLE ON REQUEST)
Most of my published pieces have appeared as two-page features in the Belfast Telegraph.

On the death of my brother;

On a 1928/29 Belfast tourism guide;

On my mother;

On the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC);

On homelessness and begging;

On my education;

On my runaway father;

On family history;

On the closure of retailer BHS;

On my father;

On actor James Ellis’s short stories;

On the golden age of television;

On singer/songwriter David McWilliams;

On leaving Belfast in 1976
On the actor Sam Kydd
On the film star Stephen Boyd
On collecting autographs
On the history of the Ulster Hall
On junk mail

SELECTED BOOKS

Retail Confidential (2010) – career retrospective

Much Calamity & The Redundance Kid (2011) – coping with job loss

Stephen Boyd: From Belfast to Hollywood (2013) – the star of Ben-Hur, etc.

MOST RECENT RADIO APPEARANCE

BBC Radio 4 Saturday Live (2018)

Link to BBC iPlayer: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09rwtg8

BLOG

Link to Dropped The Moon blog: https://droppedthemoon.blogspot.com

I can write seriously or with humour on shops, shoppers and shopping; nostalgia; old Hollywood and television; personal experiences, general lifestyle, and about my hometown, Belfast. I write reviews of non-fiction books.

SALUTING SINGER/SONGWRITER JOHN STEWART

Here's a salute to one of my all-time favourite singer/songwriters, John  Stewart, born 5 September 1939 (died at 68, 19 January 2008).

He came up through the American folk scene in the 1950s and 1960s. He was in The Cumberland Three and then The Kingston Trio whose records included Tom Dooley and Greenback Dollar. In 1967, he turned solo and scored pop music gold by writing Daydream Believer, a massive hit for The Monkees.

I saw him at the Apollo Theatre in London in 1979, around the time his album Bombs Away Dream Babies came out. Some of the tracks on it feature Fleetwood Mac's Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham.

There used to be a fanzine called Omaha Rainbow, after one of his songs, about John Stewart. The issue after the two nights at the Apollo contained a comment that the second night was the best show. The first night was a bit nervy and tense. The comment: "The first night was like getting a phone call in the middle of a fuck."

My favourite song of his by far is July, You're A Woman, from the California Bloodlines album (apparently recorded in the same studio at the same time as Bob Dylan's Nashville Skyline.

July, You're A Woman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p20OGw-PC3c

One of my all-time favourite live albums is The Complete Phoenix Concerts

Here's a gallery of some album covers.

Cheer up sleepy Jean............

SUCKING THE JOY OUT OF LIFE

What a strange era we live in.  It is an age of guilt, worry and fear. It is an age personified by the Eeyore news presentation of people like Huw Edwards and others. There seems to be (at least to this viewer) a kind of enjoyment in delivering news in a droll, downbeat fashion (furrowed brow essential, as is an occasional shake of the head or a dramatic glance away from the camera).  The overuse of the 'breaking news' banner on TV screens just adds to that sit-up-and-take-notice angst that we are subjected to whether or not the news story breaking is important, or is indeed news.

Radio phone-in shows just stir the pot and add to the problem rather than making much effort to ease minds about whatever topics of the day are deemed worthy of airtime.

Looking at the front pages of daily newspapers over a period of time suggests that, unless there is a big national or international story that captures the collective attention of editors and readers, there are diverse headlines about all sorts of stuff from celebrity boo-hoo stories to weather warnings to campaigns for whatever to a member of the Royal family sneezing without a hankie in sight.

Politics, media and business have always latched on to the guilt, worry and fear bandwagons to influence, persuade and convince people to part with their votes, their loyalties and, of course, their money.

We are now cursed with an avalanche of TV and gadget channels and, if you watch them long enough or regularly, there is a bombardment of advertisements about charitable causes, insurance, health, finances, etc that wave guilt, worry and fear in front of us along with, of course, product and conscience solutions that we must buy or sign up to or else we may as well get on the road to hell and final damnation.

Politicians love the guilt/worry/fear tactic because it is their job to change behaviour and shackle everybody to their ways of thinking.  Their job is not to serve the electorate (only important in the run-up to elections) but to do whatever they like once in power.  If you listen carefully enough in the days after a General Election, you can hear shredding machines sucking Rennies and burping because of indigestion from gorging on useless manifestos.

This is an era when the powerful and influential combine to suck all the joy out of life by ensuring through relentless drip-drip-drip brainwashing that we feel guilty, that we worry and that we fear for our lives, livelihoods and loved ones every day.

I am reminded of a couple of things. Go to YouTube and look up a clip from the film Network starring Peter Finch who plays a newsman pushed to the edge, urging us to stick our heads out the window and yell: "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore." Incidentally, Network came out in 1976, so guilt, worry and fear are not new.

There is a book, published in the 1950s, called The Hidden Persuaders* by Vance Packard. Look it up. It is more relevant today that it was back then.  Today, the persuaders are not hidden. They are out in the open and in our faces.

And then there is the depressing sight of UK politicians at their grubbiest and deceitful in their campaigns, lying, threatening, bitching, and showing that they really are hustlers out to con their way to victory and power - and most of these horrible specimens walk away rather than help clear up the mess they've made . Another thing, politicians should learn the art of shutting the hell up.

And don’t get me started on Trump!

Sod the lot of them as much as you can. Get up and go for a walk in the park, along the coast, out in the countryside and remind yourself that there is more, much, much more to life than the messages of doom and gloom that surround us.  Reclaim life's joys. They are still out there. Resist the agendas and campaigns, blatant or subtle, to make us feel guilty, to make us worry and to make us fearful.

I'm off to watch ducks on a lake for a while.

*
The blurb from The Hidden Persuaders:

"What makes us buy, believe and even vote the way we do?

Do you know:
How many of us are being influenced and manipulated in the patterns of our everyday lives?
How people's desires, needs, drives are probed in order to find points of vulnerability?
How the probers aim to influence the state of our minds and channel our behaviour as citizens?
How television (1957 remember) conditions children to be loyal enthusiasts of a product whether they are old enough to consume it or not?
How political parties merchandise their candidates and issues using the same methods that business has developed to sell goods?"