St Patrick’s Day

Of course we all know that St. Patrick’s Day is the celebration of St. Patrick, the 16th century French Canadian hockey player who went to Ireland, slap shooted all of the snakes out, and invented green beer. But why do they have parades? Why do Irish people eat potatoes? Why are they so drunken? Why do they dye the Chicago River green? What are leprechauns? Is there really a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow? Why does Sinead O’Connor shave her head? How is Shane Macgowen not dead? Why do many Irish people have an O’ in front of their name? What is a shelleighly? How do you spell shellaylee? Why is the harp the symbol of Ireland? What do the colors in the Irish flag stand for? What are they always fighting about over there? Why is the word Notre Dame French and their mascot is the Fighting Irish? Who’s the greatest Irish writer of all time? How do you do the Irish jig? What happens when you kiss the Blarney Stone?

I have no idea.

What I can say about St. Patrick’s Day is I’m glad it falls midweek this year. I did a horrible thing to myself where I’m giving up alcohol for Lent except for Saturdays and St. Patrick’s Day. This week is my easy week. Then it’s three more weeks of hell until Easter.

Joann is making some corn beef and colcannon for dinner. Colcannon is like mashed potatoes but with kale and leeks in it. Kale is a green. It’s a great dish. We’re going to drink black and tans. I never did this kind of thing on St. Patrick’s Day when I was a little kid. I just sat around and got drunk with my dad.

Saturday was Parade Day. We didn’t go to a parade. Instead, we celebrated by preparing five varieties of potatoes to be planted. We are in the farming business, now on a quarter acre. The potatoes went in the ground on Sunday. Sunday night the sky opened up, as they say, and it poured. Joann makes awesome French fries. We eat them with Heinz gourmet malt vinegar. I get hooked up because my brother-in-law works for Heinz. Our farm is called Castlemaine Farm. Castlemaine is a town in Ireland. It’s where the Wild Colonial Boy is from. Do you know that song?

There was a wild colonial boy
Jack Duggan was his name
He was born and raised in Ireland
In a place called Castlemaine
He was his father’s only son
His mother’s pride and joy
How dearly did his parents love
The wild colonial boy

At the early age of sixteen years
He left his native home
And to Australia’s sunny shores
He was inclined to roam
(yadda yadda yadda, he gets shot and killed)
And that was how they captured him...
(cue sad Irish guy on harmony on the slow, dramatic ending)
...The Wild Colonial Boyyyeee

I remember the Clancy Brothers singing that song. My dad=big Clancy Brothers fan.

My family is big with the Irish songs. We used to put on a St. Patrick’s Day show for a home of retired nuns. My aunt is a Sister of Charity, so I think she booked the gig. I used to sing “The Hat Me Dear Old Father Wore”. I was like 6.

It’s the hat me dear old father wore upon St. Patrick’s Day
Talk about respect with his head erect
As he marched along Broadway
Not a man in line looked half as fine
Me dear old mother used to say
(at this point I’d take my plastic fuzzy St. Patrick’s Day hat off and kneel down, then everybody would clap, and that used to piss me off because it wasn’t the end of the song)
As me father did in his old time lid, upon St. Patrick’s Day!
(NOW you clap)

I believe, by slowly becoming a farmer, I am coming full circle with my Irish heritage, in a way. My grandmother’s grandfather’s name was Patrick Driscoll. I am not sure, but I think he came over during the Great Famine to work on the railroads, all the live long day. There’s a tall tale about a leprechaun saving him from an oncoming train after he got his leg stuck under a tie. My dad used to tell me that as a bedtime story. In a way, maybe, I’m continuing where my ancestors left off from the famine. In a way, maybe it has nothing to do with any of that. In a way.

Americanized Irishness around St. Patrick’s Day can sometimes be nauseating. The Dali Lama says I should not meditate on anger because it feeds anger. And it is easy to focus on what angers me. But I’m not that mad at the following things. I’m just trying to make funny. Here is a list of Americanized Irish things that are not particularly pleasing:

Irish Spring Soap I’m not sure if I should take this as an insult, but some lady at work gave me some Irish Spring a couple weeks ago. This may have been cause for self-reflection, because sometimes I come to work in a less than desirable hygienic state, if she had not pointed out that the reason for her gift to me was that this soap dries out her skin. Then it comes to mind – why is she giving me this soap? Perhaps she wants to dehydrate me to death? As I sit and type, I am just out of the shower. I have hives. And I smell like my cousins. They always used Irish Spring and they always smelled like that – an unfamiliar soapy smell that makes them seem so hygienic it’s almost hostile. Irish Spring commercials always had some happy, whistling Mick with a towel going “Clean as a whistle!” Whistles are loud and annoying, and that’s how you smell after basting yourself in Irish Spring: loud and annoying.

Lucky Charms First of all, they take an evil little deceptive elf creature from Irish myth and turn him into a friendly little dork. Then again.... Orange stars, yellow moons, green clovers, blue diamonds, and childhood diabetes! Sugar coated cereal with marshmallows. Real healthy. I was never allowed to have Lucky Charms except on St. Patrick’s Day and Parade Day. My mom also dyed the orange juice green on Parade Day. So for breakfast I ate a huge bowl of Lucky Charms, washed it down with green orange juice, and then we’d go downtown to the parade, and I’d get a Shamrock Shake from McDonald’s, drink that, and puke my guts out. Hey, I wasn’t the only fat Mick puking green on the streets of Pittsburgh those mornings.

Shamrock Shakes Disgusting mint ice cream slime attack. How the hell did I ever drink that? I think fat people use it for mouthwash. Well. I don’t.

Irish “Pubs” I actually enjoy going into most Irish themed bars. They get a kick out of me when I show them my ID. One guy in the South Side started speaking Irish to me. Irish is a weird language that sounds closer to Elfish than English. Well, it’s a Celtic language, whereas English is a Germanic language. Back to the Irish bars: Most of them are real neighborly and fun. But you have to at least try. Hell, you go down to Mullaney’s Harp and Fiddle in the Strip District and they actually have people from Ireland working in the joint. But then you go to some of these, and it’s a dive with a couple of old shamrocks on the wall and some guy whose last name ends in a vowel that’s never heard of Jameson but he can give you a shot of Jack O’Daniels.

The saying, ”Everybody’s Irish on St. Patrick’s Day” No you’re not. You wish you were, but too bad. I am having more fun than you, and I won’t listen to these needy rationalizations. Go home and wait for WASP day, and stop taking up space in the bar if you’re not going to drink irresponsibly. You don’t hear, “Everybody’s Chinese on Chinese New Year.” And what is it with everyone drinking on St. Patrick’s Day? Sure- take an undesirable ethnic stereotype and rub it in our face! What if on Columbus Day everyone went around arguing, eating pasta and “whacking” each other?

The “Luck” of the Irish - Famine. War. Poverty. Alcoholism. Prejudice. Catholicism. Yeah, real fuckin’ lucky.

Green beer - yuck. Green beer. Why fuck with beer? What other substance in the universe is so perfect as beer? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

What next? Okay let’s celebrate some great Irish Americans.

Great Irish Americans

John Wayne Well, his mom was Irish, and he played Sean Thornton in a movie my dad watches every St. Patrick’s Day, The Quiet Man, so he counts. And in the biography Ronald Reagan wrote about him, he said Wayne “drank enough whiskey to float a PT boat”. Ron’s from the old school, back in the days when it was considered manly to drink. Back when we were reckless idiots destined to crash and burn from having a good time, which seems better than these days with reckless idiots destined to crash and burn from worrying all the time. I have a recording of the Duke blasted out of his skull giving a commencement speech to a bunch of West Point graduates – it could be considered one of his finer performances if you’ve seen any of his early films. John Wayne’s real name was Marion Morrison, which may explain why he tried to act like a tough guy all the time – the Boy Named Sue effect. It’s funny watching old Duke flicks, because his machismo is just silly when you look at it from a modern day viewpoint – how he marches into a bar, orders a whiskey, speaks. as though. there’re periods. after every. couple-a words. All empty posturing eventually turns into a joke when the fashion wears off. But the Duke was the Duke. How can you not love the Duke?

John F. Kennedy - The Kennedy Family can serve as a reminder to all Irish Americans that even though most of our ancestors were persecuted and called drunken apes (http://www.nde.state.ne.us/SS/irish/unit_2.html) by the WASPs when they first stepped off the boat, a few of them got connected and did damn good for themselves. But the fact that JFK was the First and Only Irish Catholic President of the United States reminds us that you WASPs have always really been the ones in control. But the fact that JFK was one of the most popular presidents proves that everybody likes Irish Catholics, except WASPs.

Chris Farley - Laughter is the best medicine, but that still makes it a drug. It’s hard to believe this guy has been dead for seven years. I remember Saturday nights laughing until my stomach hurt. I believe comedians do a service to humanity with their art form because at least they are helping us get through the crap. This is from a 12/18/97 AP article by Matthew Fox: "Although I love this kind of comedy, sometimes I feel trapped by always having to be the most outrageous guy in the room," Farley said in 1996. "In particular, I'm working on trying not to be that guy in my private life." "Saturday Night Live" creator Lorne Michaels "told me that that's what killed Belushi more than anything else.” If you look at Farley’s history, his characters, especially in his movies, were pretty much the same from one movie to the next. When you have the energy Farley did, that energy cannot be holed up in the same caricature. It struggles to break free. I don’t know him, but from the above quote it seems he became trapped in this character that once gave him freedom. Then, the negative way for that energy to break free is by killing the body, and the person commits suicide, either instantly or gradually like Farley did. This is also what killed Elvis, and it is the result of a fallacy – believing there is a separation between the soul and the body. The proper way to freedom is realizing that the body is not separate from the energy that moves it, and so, to keep the fire burning, the person must accept the impermanence of life and transform rather than remain a caricature. A snake must shed it’s old skin to be reborn. Even if, one day, he will be slap shooted out of Ireland.

Carroll O'Connor Archie Bunker, a character who, despite the man who played him, was not a Mick, nor was he a Jew, spic, wop, or polack – he was “a regular American, nere Edit”. The personification of loveable ignorance. Everybody still knows an Archie. Even in this day and age.

Conan O’Brien - The Funniest Man on Television. The man who brought us countless SNL sketches, Pimpbot, the Masturbating Bear, the Gaseous Weiner, and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. If your day is going particularly bad, read his commencement speech to Harvard’s Class of 2000 http://www.february-7.com/features/conan.htm. That is some funny funny stuff. What is it with micks and commencement speeches?

George Carlin There are few things in the world more entertaining than an old man that hates everyone and everything. The guy just gets better with age.

John Gallagher - My granddad. I can’t tell a life story about him. I know him mostly through family myths. There were a lot of stories told about him by uncles and old men in Sheridan bars, as if he was some mythological hero. Like when he hit a baseball so high it never came down. That is an old baseball myth that was applied to my granddad. He had a stroke before I was born, which affected his speech. When I read James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake, it sort of reminded me of the way he spoke. I do know that he was a truck driver. His route was mostly local to Pennsylvania. My dad and his older brother John were young children when Granddad went to World War II. He fought in the Battle of the Buldge. It may have been after this battle that he was taken prisoner. He was in a camp for at least three months before he was freed. My Uncle John said he was at least 50 pounds underweight and looked like he came out of the famine. He later recalled that the soup they fed him tasted like water run over a peeled potato. When he came home, bread tasted like cake to him. Some members of my family say he had a local radio show back in the day where he’d go down and sing. My dad said he sang on the radio as a guest a few times and the story got blown out of proportion. Another story is that he worked as a security guard at Forbes Field during the 1960 World Series. My Aunt Molly once pointed him out on that famous footage of Bill Mazeroski hitting the game winning homer against the Yankees. According to her, he can be seen running down the third base line after Maz and cheering along with everyone else. Again, my dad is skeptical. (Interesting side note: Aunt Molly’s husband, Uncle Bob, once made it into the paper by jumping on the field during a Pirate game and meeting Willie Stargell at second base to shake his hand after a home run). He’s described to everybody as a gentle, funny man, and a great singer.

Blarney boots and hootin’ toots
Jumble jingle pipes and cripes
Skip to me brouge, skip to me ay
Skip to me boots St. Patrick’s Day

I just made that up. Happy St. Patrick’s Day.