Bite Me, I’m Irish
So, why does everybody get so freaking stupid over St. Patrick's Day?It's not like we all need another excuse to drink. Christ, I never need an excuse, I just need a bottle. And, maybe, a glass. Maybe not.
I mean, really. Cubans who, all year long, vie to out-Cubanisimo each other, show up on March 17 wearing green and "Kiss Me, I'm Irish" buttons.
People who don't know the difference between single malt and chocolate malt wear shamrocks and call out for over-cooked cabbage.
Where were these people earlier this week when it was Purim? Nobody offered me a cookie. Nobody wore costumes to work. Nobody got shit-faced drunk in public, even though that is a tradition of Purim, just as much as it is of St. Paddy's day.
Me? I just grouse and complain and quote Christopher Moltisanti: "Hell is an Irish bar where it's always St. Patrick's Day."*
*With apologies to RJ and MJ, who make wonderful Irish food, and throw great St. Patrick's Day parties, and I'd gladly go to another one. But then, RJ refuses to dye food green, and that, as we all know, is a Very Good Thing.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 03/17 at 12:58 PM in Food, Glorious Food
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 03/17 at 12:58 PM in My Mind is a WMD
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 03/17 at 12:58 PM in What the Fuck is Wrong With You People
I spent too many years tending bar to ever even ACKNOWLEDGE St. Patrick’s Day.
An excuse to be Irish? An excuse for people to be even more unbearably stupid and obnoxious than they usually are. St. Paddy’s brings out the worst in everyone. BLEAH.
So, people abuse St. Patrick’s Day. People abuse a lot of things. Even if you separate the religious aspects of the holiday from the rest of it, St. Patrick’s day is still Ireland’s official independence day. It celebrates a dearly won freedom, the accomplishment of which is just at the edge of living memory. (In contrast to our own freedom, which we seem willing to cast away on the vagaries of an executive idiot.) But more than that, it celebrates Irish values—and I don’t mean that 100 proof is more valuable than 80 proof. One of the prime Irish values is hospitality and St. Patrick’s day is a day to demonstrate that. It’s a time to be with friends (and if I weren’t under the weather, that’s where I’d be) as a demonstration of loyalty and conviviality. It’s my excuse to play a lot of Irish music, which stands, in my mind, for Irish artistry. In short, freedom, friendship, generosity, and sensitivity. Drink, if you like, to that. Erin Go Braugh!
You know, I’d like to agree with MJ, but I can’t. Traditionally, Irish people went to church and went home on St. Paddy’s. Old skool St. Paddy’s was a very quiet holiday.
When the tourists started turning up to celebrate St. Paddy’s in Ireland, the natives started heading to the hotel pubs to watch them act like morons. Excellent entertainment.
Now, it’s a big $$-making clusterfuck there just as it is here. But none of the true meaning of the holiday remains; here, there or anywhere else.
MJ, you can dig it if you want to, though—we can agree to disagree, especially since I get to spend Green-Puking Obnoxious Amateur Night at home these days instead of behind a bar. ;-)