Leary not leery of saying he loves Bosox
Denis Leary plays a surly firefighter on the FX cable series “Rescue Me,” and his first book, newly published, has a similar rough, gruff (and humorous) edge to it: “Why We Suck: A Feel Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy and Stupid” (Viking, $26.95).
It’s a booklong rant with something to offend just about everyone. But in an interview, Leary comes across as thoughtful and even a bit soft-spoken.
Question: How did you come to write this book?
Answer: “I’m a competitive guy, and I hadn’t done a book. A lot of my friends had. I just didn’t want to not have tried it.”
Q: So when you put your book on your bookshelf, what else is there?
A: “I’ve always been a fan of poetry. People may be surprised by that. Early in college (Emerson College in Boston), I had a huge crush on this poetry teacher … that probably helped.
“And also a plethora of sports books and history books, biographies. Any book about the Boston Red Sox, any baseball writing – it’s the most prosaic thing in the world. I like Hemingway. But if there was a Hemingway book and the Robert Creamer book on Babe Ruth, that’s the one I’m going to pick up.”
Q: What poetry’s on your shelf?
A: “Tom Lux and (former U.S. Poet Laureate Charles) Simic and Bill Knott. Tom Lux and Bill Knott taught at Emerson College. I’m not really a classical guy because I grew up in the city. I actually don’t get Shakespeare. I would never be able to perform Shakespeare. Scorsese’s films ‘Taxi Driver’ and ‘Mean Streets’ – that’s the first time I saw guys in the movies who I felt like I grew up with them. That’s like my Shakespeare.”
Q: As a college student, you had two poems published in the distinguished poetry magazine Ploughshares. Does it help your comedy writing that you once wrote poetry?
A: “It’s the rhythm of it. I just learned this whole thing about rhythm, listening to these teachers talk about it.”
Q: In the book, you say that, even though you were taught by nuns, you can’t remember the words to the Hail Mary prayer.
A: “We were shooting a scene for ‘Rescue Me’ where my character, Tom Gavin, has to say the Our Father and the Hail Mary. And I went, ‘My God, I can’t remember the Hail Mary.’ I could name the starting lineup of the 1967 Boston Red Sox, but I can’t remember the Hail Mary.”
Q: What was it?
A: “Russ Gibson at catcher. First base is George Scott. Second base is Mike Andrews. Shortstop is Rico Petrocelli. Third base was Joe Foy. Left field was Carl Yastrzemski. Center field was Reggie Smith. Right field was Tony Conigliaro, and, when he got hurt, Dalton Jones.
“And that’s sad.”
The birthday bunch
Talk-show host Phil Donahue is 73. Movie director John Avildsen is 73. Actress Jane Fonda is 71. Actor Samuel L. Jackson is 60. Movie producer Jeffrey Katzenberg is 58. Tennis star Chris Evert is 54. Actor-comedian Ray Romano is 51. Comedian Andy Dick is 43. Actor Kiefer Sutherland is 42. Actress Julie Delpy is 39.