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Weekend Butler: Jimmy Breslin, “Deadline Artist.” John Lennon, Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon: A new film. Our daughter’s birthday. An overlooked film: “She Said.” Wendell Berry.
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Published: Mar 08, 2024
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Weekend
JIMMY BRESLIN, “DEADLINE ARTIST”
If you could call anyone the day after 9/11, who would you call?
I called Jimmy Breslin.
“Security will make you weep,” he said.
I didn’t understand why that was his comment on planes flying into the World Trade Center, but I wrote it down, and all too soon, I saw he had correctly read the future.
That line came to join other Breslin lines in my notebook.
“The plural of ‘media’ is ‘mediocrity.’”
“The poor can never be made to suffer enough.”
Breslin wanted to make money on the Internet, and I was at AOL, so he asked me to come see him. My stepson was then 15, so I brought him with me. “This is a legendary character in the life of New York,” I said, though Breslin wrote for papers I didn’t read, and I knew him mostly by reputation.
Jimmy was in pajamas and a terrycloth robe. He sat in a large chair, next to a lamp he didn’t turn on. With the light fading, he told stories of lawyers you hired if you wanted to cop a plea, and real estate developers who mostly developed friendships with the press, and his daughter Rosemary who was a friend of mine and once went so long without a date that he bluntly asked her if she was gay. By the time it was dark, his wife arrived, and the idea of asking him if he’d like to write a column had faded with the light.
And maybe his best work was behind him.
On the day of JFK’s funeral, he stood in the White House with a crowd of reporters: “I walked into the lobby and that was packed, and I said this is not for me. I saw Art Buchwald and we talked for a second and I said, ‘I can’t do any good here. I’m going to go over and get the guy who dug Kennedy’s grave.’ ‘Yeah, that’s a good idea,’ he told me. I just turned and walked right out of the place and over to Arlington cemetery, and they got me the guy.”
Jimmy Breslin watched Clifton Pollard dig the president’s grave. That column in the New York Herald Tribune — it’s a classic.
And it’s one of many. New York corruption schemes. The ‘Son of Sam” killer. Riots. Rudy Giuliani. I wrote about his biography of Branch Rickey: “They ask me to write a book about a Great American, right away I say yes. When I say yes, I always mean no. They ask me to choose a subject, and I say Branch Rickey. He placed the first black baseball player into the major leagues. His name was Jackie Robinson. He helped clear the sidewalks for Barack Obama to come into the White House. As it only happened once in the whole history of the country, I would say that is pretty good. Then some editors told me they never heard of Rickey. Which I took as an insult, a disdain for what I know, as if it is not important enough for them to bother with. So now I had to write the book.
Jimmy’s daughter Rosemary made a film about a neighborhood of 9/11 widows. “I know my husband died happy,” she told me about one widow, “because the night before 9/11, I banged him like crazy.” Rosemary had a serious medical problem. In Not Exactly What I had in Mind, she writes: “I go to Sloan Kettering every 2 weeks and get pumped up with two pints of red blood cells. This is what it takes to keep me alive. Without the blood, I could probably last a month at the most. The last two weeks I would not be able to get out of bed and would only be able to breathe with the help of an oxygen mask. And then that would be it. Gone, like Ali McGraw in ‘Love Story.’ With the blood transfusions, I’ve got this life I really dig. I work, go to the gym, hang with my friends, have the greatest marriage in the entire world. And all because of two pints of red blood cells every two weeks, four pints a month, forty-eight pints a year. That’s what gives me my life. Forty-eight pints of blood. Doctors say my condition is not fatal and if it doesn’t go away or nothing else works I could live for the rest of my life this way…
She couldn’t. Jimmy wrote and read a magnificent 484-words for Rosemary’s memorial service:
Typing a script with tubes in her arms. Writing, rewriting, using hours, being attacked by her own blood. She said that she felt great. She said that for 15 years. I don’t know of any power that could match the power of Rosemary Breslin when sick.
Jimmy had another daughter who died. His wife died. He pressed on. All these years later, there’s a 660-page book, “Breslin: Essential Writings.” (To buy it from Amazon, click here.]
This week, some of Jimmy’s lifeboat friends gathered and swapped tales. Here’s how it played.
Jimmy wrote a legendary piece on John Lennon’s murder. About it, he wrote: “I was home in bed in Forest Hills, Queens, at 11:20 P.M. when the phone and television at once said Lennon was shot. I was dressed and into Manhattan, to Roosevelt Hospital, the Dakota, up to the precinct, grabbed a cop inside, back to the Dakota, grabbed a cop outside, and to the Daily News. I wrote this column, and it made a 1:30 A.M. deadline. I don’t think there is anybody else who can do this kind of work this quickly.”
I wrote about his biography of Branch Rickey. He said of it: “They ask me to write a book about a Great American, right away I say yes. When I say yes, I always mean no. They ask me to choose a subject, and I say Branch Rickey. He placed the first black baseball player into the major leagues. His name was Jackie Robinson. He helped clear the sidewalks for Barack Obama to come into the White House. As it only happened once in the whole history of the country, I would say that is pretty good. Then some editors told me they never heard of Rickey. Which I took as an insult, a disdain for what I know, as if it is not important enough for them to bother with. So now I had to write the book.”
Yeah, I’m suggesting that you read a lot. But Jimmy was, as his friends say, a “Deadline Artist.” The only one, in fact. Worthy of this much space on Butler — and your time.
FATHER AND DAUGHTER
Our daughter — never named, but known over the years as “the infant,” “the child,” and “the small person” — turns 22 this weekend. Memories flood in. Her mother and “the young adult” and I all recall this one:
When H. was eight, she was standing with me at a bus stop on a cold winter’s night. A car stopped and a friend offered us a ride home. I asked my friend how, in the darkness, she knew it was us. She said, “I saw a man arguing with a child. I knew that was you.”
WEEKEND MOVIE
Bernstein and Woodward. (Hoffman and Redford) or two female New York Times reporters who brought Harvey Weinstein down. No wonder “She Said” was overlooked. Watch the preview here. To stream it on Amazon Prime, click here.
WAR IS OVER, IF YOU WANT IT
John and Yoko’s son Sean made a film inspired by their song. Click here for the stunning preview.
THE WEEKEND POEM
“The Peace of Wild Things,” by Wendell Berry
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
WEEKEND RECIPE
Zucchini With Shallots
This simple dish from Pierre Franey is light and delicious. It takes only a few minutes and would be a great side dish for grilled beef or chicken or any type of seafood. The breadcrumbs added at the end provide excellent texture.
4 servings
1½ pounds small zucchini
2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
2 tablespoons fresh breadcrumbs
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons chopped shallots
4 tablespoons chopped parsley
PREPARATION
Rinse the zucchini and pat dry. Trim off the ends, but do not peel them. Cut into ⅛-inch slices.
Heat the oil in a nonstick skillet and when the oil is hot, add the zucchini. Saute the zucchini over high heat, shaking the pan and tossing gently. Add salt and pepper, and cook a total of 5 minutes.
Add the breadcrumbs and butter to the pan. When the crumbs start to brown, add the shallots and cook for another minute, tossing. Serve sprinkled with parsley.
