Lessons of the Irish Pimp

Sidewalks with Tom Deignan

Lessons of the Irish Pimp

February 14, 2008

By Tom Deignan

WITH the love of Valentine’s Day in the air, I really want to focus on positive things. I want to tell you about an Irish couple, an 87-year-old husband and his 93-year-old wife, who grew up in Ireland, came to New York and whose love was so strong they literally could not live without each other. And I will tell you about them.

But first I’ve got to tell you about the Irish pimp.

Because this is what the culture has come to. Everyday our best intentions battle our more base instincts. And during the heat of a political campaign, base instincts tend to rule.

You’ve surely heard by now that Hillary and Bill Clinton were outraged when an MSNBC commentator named David Schuster said that Chelsea Clinton had been “pimped out” to her mother’s presidential campaign.

“I am a mom first and a candidate second. I found the remarks incredibly offensive,” said Hillary in a statement.

Oh well, I thought, another coarse day on the campaign trail. I still had a column to write, and Valentine’s Day was looming.

But there was another appropriate topic I could cover, a traveling exhibit which had recently rolled into Kansas City about the 19 American presidents who had Irish roots.

Then, while looking at www.irishkc.com, a web site dedicated to all things Irish in Kansas City, I read these words.

“The Kansas City St. Patrick’s Day Parade Committee have named Lucky the Irish Pimp as the grand marshal for the 2008 parade in downtown KC. Unfortunately, Lucky the Irish Pimp won’t be going to the parade in costume, but luckily for you dear readers, Irish KC is able to present this extraordinary video of the Irish Pimp in all his Irish pomp.”

Believe me when I tell you that the video which follows makes the MSNBC comment look saintly. Lucky the Irish Pimp offends pretty much every human being on the planet.

An African American guy is dressed up in an outfit which combines the worst of the gnome from Lucky Charms cereal and the Fighting Irish mascot from Notre Dame. His accent floats from stage Irish to ghetto.

And, well, he really is a pimp. So there’s also a woman in the video, a working girl if you will, explaining why her income on this given day was not quite as much as it has been on previous days.

A conflict ensues. None of this is a joke.

An Irish pimp controversy. Who knew?

Now, bear in mind, I’m assuming this business about this fellow being the grand marshal for the 2008 Kansas City St. Patrick’s Day parade is a joke. The IrishKC website adds, “Also not appearing as the grand marshal of the 2008 KC Paddy’s Day parade, are Brogeen Malarkey or Leopold Bloom, the two rather famous Irish characters portrayed annually for so many years in KC by the tireless and very generous Dan O’Mara.”

For the record, the theme of this year’s parade is “Growing up Irish.”

But this pimp business kind of blew my mind. It turns out this is a short film made a decade earlier, presumably in the name of mocking ethnic stereotypes to such an extreme that to call it offensive would be pointless.

But it does beg the question — if the Irish pimp can, in the name of good fun, be put on a website dedicated to all things Irish, then is suggesting that a presidential candidate is “pimping out” her daughter really so bad?

Worse, since I started out talking about the battle between things that are noble and things that are coarse, haven’t I myself surrendered to my base impulses by obsessing over this Irish pimp business?

So let me try and redeem myself.

Michael Patrick Keating was born in Kerry and came to the U.S. after World War II. Molly Burns was born in Clare, and met Michael at an Irish dance in Manhattan.

They married in St. Jean Baptiste Church on the Upper East Side and had two children. They later moved to Staten Island, then New Jersey.

Earlier this month, at Morristown Memorial Hospital, Michael passed. The following day, Molly also passed. It seems there’s was a love so strong, they could not bear to be apart.

Best to think about that –- rather then pimps of any kind –- on Valentine’s Day.

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