Photograph by Rick Gould
KTRS (550 AM) radio host McGraw Milhaven and his cousin J.R. Moehringer, a Pulitzer Prize- winning journalist, grew up together. Milhaven took life as it came; Moehringer did the worrying for both of them. Mainly they helped each other find replacements for the fathers who had abandoned them. Milhaven chose sports; Moehringer fell into the charmed circle of a neighborhood bar in Manhasset, N.Y. His memoir, The Tender Bar, was released by Hyperion in September and hit the New York Times bestseller list instantly. Film rights have already been bought. Milhaven has decided that Vince Vaughn should play him and Billy Crudup should play Moehringer. At the Canyon Cafe a few weeks ago, the cousins talked about their lives.
JRM: I'm pleasantly surprised that we're both doing what I think we were supposed to do. I didn't think it was going to turn out like that. For most of my life I thought our dreams and talents would be thwarted by circumstance.
MM: I always knew we were going to get there--I just didn't know how. We kept hitting brick walls, and there was no one saying, "Hey, here's the door."
JRM: Because I was always so worried, my circle of worry naturally grew to include McGraw. I've always seen myself as a big brother to him, and he's never seen me in that way, which makes our relationship comical. It was like Jerry Lewis mentoring Dean [Martin].
MM: Grandma would say, when we came home from a game, "J.R., why aren't you more like McGraw? Win the game, lose the game, either way he downs a gallon of milk and he's ready to play again. You have to sulk."
JRM: My publishing company was filling out a biography and asked what my motto was. I said, "The power of negative thinking."
MM: Even when we were all living in the house with Grandma and Grandpa, there was always this overriding sense that somebody was going to write a book. There was just too much material.
JRM: And I was always the one who said, "Who'd want to read about this family?" MM: Bizarre as it was, they filled us up with stories of "people who started out with nothing and look at them now." When I got into radio and they said, "You can't be on the radio because you stutter," I thought, "Oh, good. That's what they're supposed to tell me."
JRM: Yeah, McGraw's mother and our grandmother really loved the Horatio Alger myth--and I thought each of those stories was a bigger crock than the last.
MM: Some family members are having a hard time with the book. So I'm in a tough position. I think Grandma and Grandpa are rolling over in their graves that the seven of us are not talking.
JRM: I wanted to make this book as painless as it could be for McGraw's side of the family. I wrote about his mother and his sister, but I couldn't get their permission because they haven't spoken to me since our grandparents fell ill. I don't get many reports from the other side of the great divide.
MM: For me, reading the book was cathartic. I have never felt this light, ever.
JRM: It wasn't a catharsis for me, not at all. If you are going to work this hard on something, you better get your catharsis done in your free time.
MM: My college roommate read the book, turned to his wife and said, "This is what I've been trying to tell you all these years. This is what it's like growing up without a father. His bar was my golf course."
JRM: The bar was a Noah's ark of dysfunction.
MM: I don't think J.R.'s had a drink in 15 years. When the Cardinals bought into KTRS, I had a couple.
JRM: Turning 25 hit me like I was turning 50. I saw failure right over the horizon. I thought, "Let me try to give up all this fun stuff and see if I can't bear down." My life got better so immediately that, after a while, not drinking became superstitious. In our twenties, we made this pact: He would quit smoking if I would lock myself in my room and write a certain number of pages. So I'd lock myself in my room and stare out the window, and he'd sneak downstairs to smoke.
MM: Every Monday, he had to hand me a chapter--but part of the deal was that I wasn't allowed to look at it.
JRM: They were sealed envelopes stuffed with blank pages.
MM: I'm convinced he knew it was going to work eventually.
JRM: He couldn't be more wrong.
