Happy St. Pat's, minus the touristy junk
Mar. 17th, 2009 04:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_archfiendAs someone who actually is part Irish, let me point out that I'm getting less and less enamored with the Amateur Hour aspect of the binge-drinking spectacle that the official downtown parade has become.
The army of over-exuberant yuppie drunks I had to dodge in order to buy a friend a birthday present on Saturday at 4PM (all the way up on North Avenue, yet!) got very old very fast, and although I'm sure that things were a bit more in control on Sunday for the south side parade I get the sinking feeling that there were some serious tourist morons making the rounds on that day as well.
As a former parade imbiber myself, let's just put it like this; there are just some things you outgrow, and the sense of "I used to do this crap and actually enjoyed it?" is growing with every new St. Pat's. Oh, and the entire green beer thing? All that is is just crappy American "pilsner" that can't hold a candle to the genuine Irish stuff like Guinness (or better yet, Beamish) or a decent American microbew like Goose Island's Kilgubbin Red; it can easily be shotgunned by people too scared to try something more, well, substantial in taste. The microbrews I had at my friend's birthday party later that night at Piece would eat those greenish plastic cups of Miller (gack!) for breakfast if they even bothered to notice them in the first place.
In other words, donning some kelly green clothing and drinking yourself to oblivion with bad dyed beer doesn't make you Irish; being Irish makes you Irish. But if you're not, pull up a bar stool and have a pint or two with me one of these days.
The army of over-exuberant yuppie drunks I had to dodge in order to buy a friend a birthday present on Saturday at 4PM (all the way up on North Avenue, yet!) got very old very fast, and although I'm sure that things were a bit more in control on Sunday for the south side parade I get the sinking feeling that there were some serious tourist morons making the rounds on that day as well.
As a former parade imbiber myself, let's just put it like this; there are just some things you outgrow, and the sense of "I used to do this crap and actually enjoyed it?" is growing with every new St. Pat's. Oh, and the entire green beer thing? All that is is just crappy American "pilsner" that can't hold a candle to the genuine Irish stuff like Guinness (or better yet, Beamish) or a decent American microbew like Goose Island's Kilgubbin Red; it can easily be shotgunned by people too scared to try something more, well, substantial in taste. The microbrews I had at my friend's birthday party later that night at Piece would eat those greenish plastic cups of Miller (gack!) for breakfast if they even bothered to notice them in the first place.
In other words, donning some kelly green clothing and drinking yourself to oblivion with bad dyed beer doesn't make you Irish; being Irish makes you Irish. But if you're not, pull up a bar stool and have a pint or two with me one of these days.
