Anyone who's picked up a New York paper in the past fifty years has heard of Pete Hamill. He's as well known as Breslin. He's just slightly less angry and self hating. And Denis Hamill is a damn good writer himself, but he's been living in his brother's shadow for his entire career.

pete's one of my favorite writers, he's very good.

Binnie, I knew Pete when I worked for the NY Post. A fine guy, always taking the side of the working guy against the powerful. Very broad minded. He also gave a talk to a club I was a member of when I was in college.


That's a big understatement Readers of the NYC dailies in the Sixties got two different views of Irish New Yorkers from Hamill and Breslin. To Hamill, every Irishman was a poet, a revolutionary, a Robin Hood for the poor against the rich, a family man, an honest workin' stiff. To Breslin, every Irishman was a lout, a dunce, a drunk and a fool. NYC Irish didn't take kindly to that characterization. When Breslin ran for NY City Council President on Norman Mailer's Mayoral ticket in 1969, angry Irish NYers ran him out of Gaelic Park in the Bronx--he barely escaped with his life.

Well, I was being nice .

We've talked about this in the past, TB. My grandfather was a delegate in the typesetter's union. But just like anyone else, he started in the old News building downtown. Some of the best memories from my early childhood in the '60s was going to visit him downtown. That enormous globe in the old building is as fresh in my mind today as it was almost fifty years ago.

Anyway, long story short, back then the writers and the blue collar guys socialized quite a bit. It wasn't unheard of for sports writers to go out drinking with ballplayers back then, either. And when my grandfather died everyone from Breslin to Dick Young showed up. Which speaks to your point because I'm told that Jimmy Breslin and Dick Young were the two most hated writers in the business back then.

You guys got me started on newspapering now. Thanks a lot! My first job in printing was at a newspaper and I still have ink under my fingernails.

Pizzaboy, those old Linotype machines were awesome. A truly remarkable sight was to see a seasoned vet operating one of these things - it was poetry in motion.

The late Chicago newspaper man, Mike Royko, use to hold court at The Billy Goat Tavern nearly every night after the next day's edition was put to bed. All kinds of other guys would join him until all hours.

The new generation of Royko's in Chicago include John Kass and Rick Kogan. Sorry for off topic but newspapers are my first love.

Awesome, just awesome. These things were the Apples of their day!