This remnant will be replaced soon. The FAQ is back, with a new design! Who or what is Character Zero and Mulcahey? Short answer: Tom Marshall, in The Phish Book: "The first part of 'Character Zero' was originally a poem I wrote called 'Convince.' The only thing we added was, 'I oughtta see the man Mulcahey.' Trey and I had a blast buzzing around the Caymans in our rented Suzuki four-wheel-drive convertible. Trey always drove, and I always operated the radio. One night we heard this hilariously fucked-up Jamaican DJ and started screaming along to him, 'I-I oughtta sleep now Mulcahey.' It was very cathartic at the time." (Mark Mezrich, 2/16/99) Old (longer) answer: The line is believed to be "I ought to see the man Mulcahey" or "I got" or "I hope", (the tablature book for Billy Breathes indicates the former) but other suggestions include "I want to see the mammal cages", "Eye out, I see no manual pages", "Alright, drive me to Ann Arbor, please", "I-I I've seen the band Mulcahy!" (from <StoneyIA@aol.com>), and "I, uh.. ya see, I'm an, uh, a, gee...". Still unclear who Mulcahey is or might be (nor why someone would want to be driven to Ann Arbor), but: Hal Waterman thought he "heard Mike say once that Mulcahey was the hebrew word for king," but Adam Posner responded that "The Hebrew word for King is Melech. It is possible that Mulcahey is a derivative, since Hebrew is written with consonants only (vowels are added above or below the letters, but are most often omitted altogether). I don't know if Mulcahey has any meaning in Hebrew." Ben Schmidt emailed to say that the Hebrew word for king is malchia. Gil Shapir reported that "'malchey' in Hebrew means 'MY King'." Judah Ariel added (8/26/99), The hebrew word for king is 'melech', not 'malchia'. 'My king' would be 'malchee'. The word 'malchei', the closest hebrew equivalent to Mulcahey, would mean 'king of', as in the traditional name of God, 'Malchei Hamlachim (King of Kings)'." John Davis said that the weatherman on a television station in Syracuse, NY, (where Fishman grew up and where his parents live) is Matt Mulcahey -- as John Davis put it, " In actuality Fish is requesting a Weather Report, a forecast or prediction, if you will." Nate DeRose posted that in On the Air, a 10-episode 1980s series produced and co-written by David Lynch, "in the last episode... there is a man only named Mulcahey, who presents them with a 'voice disintegrater' which ruins peoples voices...." Chris Charapata thinks it refers to Father Mulcahey from the television series M*A*S*H, who "always seemed to have a answer or solution to problems" and "taught virtue and patience and he stressed moral values. Yet, he always had a quasimatic way of saying things." Travis Gates (6/19/98) suggested "I (have, ought to, etc. - different each time) see/seen the Mad Malkave. This is short for Malkavian which is a clan of vampires in the RPG Vampire: The Masquerade. This clan is known for their insanity, hence the "MAD" Malkave. Check it out, take a listen and see what you think. I can't hear anything else after discovering this one." Tom Marshall reported in an interview [date?] that actually (?) it's, "I, I ought to clean the Manmahr Cave" (a cave in southern Italy where Fishman was born)." Nick posted (12/7/98) that "the man mulcahey is what they called Steve Lillywhite, the producer of the album that song comes on (Billy Breathes)" in James Joyce's Ulysses, chpt 6: line 717-731, the caretaker of the graveyard relates a story/tale about an obscure man named "Terence Mulcahy from Coombe," whose grave lies in the cemetary. Coombe is an area in Dublin. The story is that two drunks come looking for Mulcahy's grave, a friend of theirs, only to realize the grave they are searching for is not the correct one, and because they are drunk they realize that they have no idea. So the Mulcahy mystery remains. Even the Joyce scholars and commentators are unaware of who this Terence Mulcahy is, and the vastness of Joyce commentaries suggests that no one really knows. Perhaps Trey is referring to this obscure character in "Ulysses" as a symbol of having seen through the mystery of life, or something like that. (Adam Segal 10/18/99) "I ought to see the man called betty" (Christopher Guinn 2/25/99) "I ought to see the man Paul Kay" after a musician (Joseph Wilson 7/11/99) "I I I see the grand (or band) marquee" (Buchanan 7/5/99) "The name of the lead singer from the band Polaris (known for the theme song to "hey sandy" which is the theme to tv's Pete and Pete) is Mark Mulcahy." (Daniel Hettinger) "I, I see them ooooo's, okay?", such that Mike is saying he doesnt need the slashes to distinguish o and 0 - and note taht the "Zero" in the title is often written "zer0" (Justin Perkins, 12/4/00) "I can see them, and I'm OK" (Justin Whitehouse, 2/27/03) Character Zero is not a person, it's a grade on a report card. In middle school I was graded not only on my academic abilities, but also on "citizenship." I thought of the title on Saturday night as "Character: 0." First they taught him to act one way, then they taught him the opposite, so what's a boy to do? Clearly he's having an existential crisis..."All I learn is always wrong." And dammit, it's not his fault if he forgets something, because obviously the teacher hasn't properly taught it to him yet. How dare he disagree with the teachers, the little smartass! Sounds like Tom just got a big fat zero for his "citizenship" grade. Therefore he needs to see "the man Mulcahey" for a straightening out. "Mulcahey" could easily be the chaplain from "M*A*S*H," but I think it's meant to represent an Irish Catholic priest in general. Did Tom attend Catholic school as a child? (John Coleman, 3/4/03) There's a Mark Mulcahy of Miracle Legion that has played with Amfibian (Tom Marshall's band), e.g. 11/03/00 at Pearl Street in Northhampton, MA. (Alex Pocock, 2/20/01) Consider these lines from "Hey Sandy" by Polaris, the song/band that did the theme song for an old Nickelodeon show called The Adventures of Pete and Pete... the singer of this band is Mark Mulcahy and both songs have a secret line that the writers refuse to reveal (anastasio/mulcahy): (Dan Harris, 2/12/02)      Hey Smilin' strange,      You lookin' happily deranged       Icouldasettleshimbee - (The famous unknown line)      Or have you picked your tar According to The Phish Book, when Trey and Tom were in the Carribibean islands writing songs for Billy Breathes, they were at a stop light and a Jamaican DJ was on air named __ "the Man" Mulcahey. Curious what he looked like, they couldn't help but to start singing "got to see the man mulcahey". (Thanks to Tim O'Neil) Thanks also to Stanley Russell and Taylor. Random: by Bryan Rodgers, 2/20/03: I was taught a month ago That this song is the way to go If we need to close a set This one hasn't failed us yet I'm convinced the whole show long That this tune we can ne'er play wrong There's no chance I could forget The simple rocking chorus, yeah! I...oughta pla-ay Sla-ave "The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything." -- Goethe (1749-1832) This page last updated February 03, 2007. All contents © 1992-2007 Ellis Godard. All rights reserved.