McRant

This is the third version of this post. Saturday I wrote another St. Paddy's rant, but chucked it because it was lame. Then I decided to post up a Video clip on Absinthe because a) It's green, and b) There's nothing like a love-note to some fancy-pants French liqueur to piss all over that sham holiday. That never got done, so now I'm back to a rant.

I love to drink (lots), and any excuse to get howl-at-the-moon stinko should be a good one, but fuck St. Patrick's day. Seriously. The more I think about it, the more worked-up I get. It's a holiday for a Roman-Catholic saint for Christ's sake. I'm not Christian, and sure as hell not Catholic (even though I should be able to claim so after enduring a 5-fucking-hour-long wedding ceremony). I'm a drunk, and I am part Irish - There's a long line of dirt-farmers, travelers, and white-trash crapping up that branch of my family tree.

St Paddy's Day (as we know it) isn't an Irish holiday. It's not a religious holiday. It's an American holiday. It's a bastardized 20th century Hallmark holiday fueled by Miller Lite and the makers of green food dye. Leave it to our dopey culture to turn a high holly McHoliday honoring some English slave turned zealot into an excuse to wear green, drink mint milkshakes, and get shitty on crappy beer dyed green. Jesus fucking Christ, what the hell is wrong with us? It's an Irish holiday, so we all have to get fucking loaded? I'm part Norwegian too, does that mean that I have to burn a Danish flag and dig up jars of fermented fish out of my backyard on Syttende Mai (May 7th)? It's just embarrassing, and real fucking lame. Period. End.
Oh, and if I see another cutesy leprechaun lapel pin it's going up someone's ass.

Here's my solution: Forget St. Paddy's Day - Bacchanalia is March 16th and 17th every fucking year. We get an extra day, and it celebrates a god who actually endorsed drinking, gluttony, and fornication. Sounds good to me.
The Italians are about to lose Columbus Day (all evidence indicates that he was born, raised, and lived in Spain), so Bacchanalia could be the new Dago Day. It'll be great. All the girls can put on too much eyeliner and dress up in gold-lame - All the guys can don knock-off Member's Only jackets embroidered with the Lamborghini emblem and sport bushy fake mustaches. We will all eat spaghetti, watch Satyricon, and talk like Sopranos. I can even envision a market for leaning-tower beer kegs and Mussolini pinatas. Who wouldn't love that?
It's fucking genius.

It's St. Patrick's Day, I'm Part Irish, and I Don't Give a Sh!t

Legend has it that that Saint Patrick drove the snakes from Ireland, thus making the emerald isle safe for plague rats.

Born Maewyn Succat (or some such sh!t), he was kidnapped from the British mainland around age 16, and shipped to Ireland as a slave. Jesus, this guy was born in fucking England for Christ’s sake. The most identifiable icon of Ireland is British; no wonder the limeys still have control of Ulster (Northern Ireland). Those god damned clover-pickers can't even produce their own patron Saint. Let's hear U2 or the freaking Chieftains write a song about that one.

Here in the States, this pseudo-religious holiday is celebrated by drunken frat boys and their ilk in the form of a 24 hour drinking contest. Yeah, there's nothing more Irish than a mug of dye-green Miller Light, except (of course) famine.

Every year I go out to brave the bars, and every year I come closer to a spree killing. I might just be getting old, but the idea of wall-to-wall douche-bags writhing around in their own excretions and trying to nail the dumpy chick with the bad red dye-job doesn't seem like a good time. Oh yeah, and if I hear one more mother-fucker with a green plastic horn bleating from across the room, that cocksucker is going to need a pair of forceps to extricate it.

_______________

BTW: I just found out that MSN doesn't like swears - won't let you publish 'em - fuckers

Link to Original Post

The Perfect Storm

Friday, March 17th 2006 - A day which will live in the annals of drunken douchbaggery...

All day Friday when someone would ask "What are you doing tonight for St. Pat's?", I'd swear up and down that the LAST place I wanted to be was at the bar with all of the drunken novices. I would then explain how that day was a 'perfect storm' scenario involving the following factors:
- St. Patrick's Day
- The NCAA tournament
- Friday
- Tourist starting to file into town for the fucking cherry blossoms

The preceding factors spelled out a pretty shitty scene out at the bar, so I was determined to sit this one out.

Around 4PM my buddy Steve gave me a call to see if I wanted to grab a quick one. What the hell, I haven't seen Steve in awhile - It'd be good to catch up over a beer (or two). I made it abundantly clear that I wanted to be far clear of the bar by 6PM when the work crowd started filing in, Steve agreed (he had to be home to his family by 6:30), and it was on.

We get to the bar; have a couple, and then Steve leaves. It's getting crowded, so I decide to finish my beer, and slip out.

Then came the shots.

My friend Lyn came in with her mom (visiting from London), grabbed me and forced me at gunpoint to drink a round of shots with them.
You need a chaser for the whiskey, so I order another beer. Now that I have a full beer, and Lyn was nice enough to buy me a shot, it would be rude to split without catching up.
Another round appears out of nowhere.
Plus, her mom is here from the UK, and I'm (in my mind after the second round of Jameson's) a goodwill ambassador of sorts. It's my job to make sure the Limeys are having the time of their lives, and I wouldn't want the Europeans to think that we Americans are uncivilized.
This involves me buying another round of whiskey shots, and another beer (all of a sudden the one I just ordered had emptied... must have spilled, or something).
BARKEEP!

Anita and Jes entered the bar and came over. They got there just in time to catch my charming soliloquy on the fall of the British Empire, and how in the spirit of the holiday we should go steal the drinks from those Irish faggots who were singing "Danny Boy" over in the corner.
I was doing a bang-up job of good-will ambassador, and was sure that the queen of England would be sure to give me a commendation once she heard of my servitude. So good, in fact, that I felt obligated to order another round of shots.

It was sometime around here that something weird happened it was either:
a) I was abducted by a UFO, cryogenically frozen for the remainder of the evening, replaced by a replicant with severe behavioral problems, and later had those memories implanted into my suspended conscience
-or-
b) An evil wizard cast a spell on me, reversing my personality from 'Charming Rogue' to 'Surly Jackass'

Anyway, things kinda' get "fuzzy" around this time:

- I remember moving down to the basement bar in order to fortify a good drinking stronghold.

- I remember that I decided that Jes would be my "stunt-girlfriend" for the night, which (apparently) involves doing shots and being picked up and spun around over my shoulder.

- I remember getting into it with some yuppie types because they were wearing green, which I claimed was tha gang color 'o' the Paddy McGuiness Street Brotherhood, who killed my brother.

- I remember screaming and laughing at the same time.

- I remember people buying me shots as 'peace offerings'.

At about 11PM The Girl calls with the obligatory "where the fuck are you, you said you'd be home 4 hours ago you asshole" call.
I figured that I had probably an equal chance of getting shot at the bar or getting shot at home, so I paid off the tabs (plural) and staggered out the door.

I didn't puke on the train!?!

I got home, and was still in surly-overdrive. The dog went and hid in the bathtub, and the girl wandered off to bed while I was mid rant about something.

Who needs them? I can have fun all by myself.

I poured a glass of Maker's, opened a Bass Ale, and woke up on the couch 6 hours later.

It might have been a shitty night to go out drinking, but I OWNED that fucker.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to correlate the subpoenas which I acquired that evening.