Yesterday, Nicole Belle at Crooks & Liars put up a post up about former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and his actions regarding outfitting the FDNY with proper—and functional—radios. Motorola was given a no-bid contract to provide the city with said radios—when tested in 2001 the devices didn’t work, so the FDNY was once again stuck with radios that hadn’t worked properly during the first attack on the Twin Towers in 1993.

There is footage of Rudy declaring how the brave firemen “stood their ground” in the towers on that otherwise fair, late summer day known as 9/11—truth be known, if their radios had been working they would have obeyed orders to evacuate. It’s kind of like saying the passengers of the Titanic bravely drowned in freezing waters—had they been given life rafts, it’s rather likely they would have opted for survival, capiche?

When Rudy Giuliani trumpets his actions vis a vis 9/11 he outdoes Herod dancing naked on the graves of the Muses. Or maybe I dreamed it.

I wrote the following lyrics in a nod to the former Mayor and his sweetheart deal with Motorola. To the New York City Fire Department, and to all the friends and families affected by Giulian’s Radios, I wish you leadership that does not foolishly endanger its bravest men and women.

Giuliani’s Radios
sung to the tune of Warren Zevon’s Mohammed’s Radio

Everybody’s breathless and they’re stuck on upper floors
Someone’s trying so hard to reach them
Something makes it a no-go
So the danger & desperation grows

But don’t it shake you down into your bones
Just so wrong
Giuliani’s radios
I heard somebody screaming lost and alone
But not on the radios, Giuliani’s radios

You know, the Mayor’s got his work to do
He will surely learn to get a clue
In walked a faithful crony with his Motorolas
He heard nothing, nothing ain’t right, Giuliani’s radios

But don’t it shake you down into your bones
Just so wrong
Giuliani’s radios
I heard somebody screaming lost and alone
But not on the radios, Giuliani’s radios

Everybody’s confident, the two-ways will be sweet
Call the men, let them know they had better leave to the street
Alas, the calls are incomplete

But don’t it shake you down into your bones
Just so wrong
Giuliani’s radios
I heard somebody screaming lost and alone
But not on the radios, Giuliani’s radios

You’ve been up those stairs, listening for the hum
Croaking in the smoke-filled, choke-filled, choke-filled, choke-filled sun
I heard the salesman whisper to his cus-to-mer
“Fourteen million, a sweet number”

But don’t it shake you down into your bones
Just so wrong
Giuliani’s radios

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