`RESCUE ME' SHOWS COST OF BEING A HERO.Byline: Valerie Kuklenski Staff Writer JACK McGEE is no longer a firefighter, but he plays one on TV. He had fireman roles in ``Turk 182!'' and ``Backdraft'' and now he is crusty crust·y adj. crust·i·er, crust·i·est 1. Having, resembling, or being a crust. 2. Rough or surly in manner. See Synonyms at gruff. Chief Jerry Reilly Jerry Reilly was the fictional firehouse chief from the FX drama Rescue Me. The character was portrayed by Jack McGee. Character history At the beginning of the series, Jerry assaults a gay firefighter only to reveal later that he has a gay son that he has all but in FX's critically acclaimed drama series ``Rescue Me.'' McGee wears the coat, boots and hat naturally as a 10-year veteran of FDNY FDNY Fire Department New York (New York City, NY, USA) FDNY Fort Drum, New York (US Army) in the Bronx. That background gives him a unique view on the verisimilitude of the show's essence: A crew of New York City New York City: see New York, city. New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. firefighters still is trying to cope with 9/11, when four men from the house died. Their unresolved rage and grief surface in Tommy Gavin's (Denis Denis, king of Portugal: see Diniz. Leary's) return to drinking, the chief's compulsive gambling compulsive gambling or pathological gambling, a psychological disorder characterized by a persistent inability to resist the impulse to gamble. and other firefighters' sexual promiscuity Promiscuity See also Profligacy. Anatol constantly flits from one girl to another. [Aust. Drama: Schnitzler Anatol in Benét, 33] Aphrodite promiscuous goddess of sensual love. [Gk. Myth. . ``It's pretty damn real,'' McGee said by phone last week, between takes of a street scene in Washington Heights. ``It's right on the money. When I read the script and I read Tommy Gavin's character in the first episode when he takes that one-year sobriety chip and he throws it in the water, I said, 'Whoa, man, they're onto something here.' '' He said fire departments tend to teach recruits about teamwork, fire behavior and equipment handling rather than coping with a loss or bearing the burden of the ``hero'' label. ``These are blue-collar workers who just happened to take a (fire department) test because their brother did or their uncles did, and then you get on this job and you train for six weeks to learn how to use these tools to help people, and the next thing you know you're cutting six dead kids out of a car. And nobody prepares you for that.'' He said one Midtown mid·town n. A central portion of a city, between uptown and downtown. midtown Noun US & Canad the centre of a town firehouse that lost 15 men in the World Trade Center has been keeping its doors closed because the firemen can't deal with the public adulation ad·u·la·tion n. Excessive flattery or admiration. [Middle English adulacioun, from Old French, from Latin ad and curiosity. ``They're in the spotlight,'' McGee said. ``And it's been three years and they're acting out - they're drinking, they're running around on their wives, they're acting out sexually, they're beating each other up. ``(The show) is not about making guys look good. It's about guys fighting through everything that they're made of to make a change in their lives and to say to somebody, 'What I'm doing bites the big one sometimes.' ``There are some firemen that don't like it. I don't blame them. (Leary and the other writers) haven't shown the good side yet. But we've also got to be reminded this is television, it's entertainment, and it's also a slice of life. ``And the truth of the matter is, when a guy says, 'Oh, man, they're showing them drinking on the job,' I said to a couple of guys, 'You mean to tell me that you don't know Don't know (DK, DKed) "Don't know the trade." A Street expression used whenever one party lacks knowledge of a trade or receives conflicting instructions from the other party. anybody who works in your battalion that has lost their job because of drinking? Come on! Snap out of it!' '' He said the show gets mixed responses from the public as well, and cited one harshly critical letter from a viewer. ``She called ('Rescue Me') filth and this and that ... saying over and over again she keeps waiting to see if there's going to be anything good out of it but it's just horrible. 'And I hope when you wake up, you see 343 souls looking back at you and they're ashamed of you.' ``And I said, whoa. And then I thought to myself, some of the things she said Things She Said is single CD by the band Kent. Track listing
McGee, who was up for a comic-relief role in ``Ladder 49'' that was dropped from the final script, said dramas about firefighters may spur ``some of these tough guys'' to seek counseling. He also sees the merits of portraying their humanity. ``They're not heroes. They're just guys that get stuck into a situation and some of them wanted to be in it, some of them love it, some of them get off on it and some of them are scared sh--less when it happens. ``The truth is I'm not terribly fond of all the acting out and the showing of some of the negative parts of the characters. But you know what? I think (the producers) are just grabbing (viewers) with some of the stuff and then somewhere along the line they're going to have to show these guys with redeeming qualities. Because there are a lot of great guys.'' Valerie Kuklenski, (818) 713-3750 valerie.kuklenski(at)dailynews.com |
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