It's coming...

Got posts ready in my head but have yet to put them down, including my friend's going away party and yesterday's shenanigans. Until then let these 2 snippet I took yesterday afternoon and about 2 weeks ago tide you over.
Slainte.





UPDATE- I apologize for the crappy quality of these vids. Got an actual camera so the quality should improve moderately. Still, I think the grainy work gives it some emotion.

Erin Go Bleargh Blog

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!!!
Or is it Merry St. Patrick’s Day...I can never tell with these holidays.

Whatever. Welcome to another day where you have an excuse to get drunk.

Lucky you.

Bastard.

St. Paddy's Day has the distinction of being my 4th favorite yet most hated drinking holiday. Before I come to how it accomplishes this miraculous dichotomous existence I guess I should give a quick run-down on my Top Three.
My number one with a bullet drunky holiday is New Year’s Eve. Basically, a day to drink and forget about everything in the past year.

Yes. That’s correct. You are socially allowed to black out and be an ass for a night. Cheers.

My third favorite is Arbor Day. Drinking and trees just go together. But only wine. Drinking beer on this day is pretty low-brow, folks.

My second favorite holiday is Cinco de Mayo. It’s great strictly off the ignorance factor. Most people really don’t know what it is about and just use it as an excuse to drink.

I’ve heard that it is Mexican Independence Day. WRONG. That’s September 16th.

I’ve been told it’s a scam to move those extra bottles of Coronas. WRONG.
Well, kinda wrong.

Cinco is actually an observance of the Mexican army beating the French at the Battle of Puebla in 1862. I know you are thinking "Big deal. Who hasn't beat the French? They haven't been hard since Napoleon, son."
Well, the Mexican army beat them while hugely outmanned and outgunned. So it’s basically a party to celebrate Mexico’s version of 300. With sombreros.


Leonidas is Mexican and the Persians are the French. Work with me.

This is also one of the reasons why I like St. Paddy’s day. NO ONE (except the random official Irish people that you CANNOT understand) knows what it is really about. All right. I’ll tell you.
It’s a celebration of St. Patrick’s death. He was the patron saint of Ireland.
Why? I don’t know. I’m only Irish after 1 am, people. Anyway, it’s a celebration death day and feast day in his honor. We are having a giant drunken wake for the patron saint of Ireland.


HUUUUUGGGGGGGEEEEEE Boozehound. Like Mother Teresa

I also have this day as one of my favorite days because of drunk Irish girls. Excuse me. Lasses. Gotta love redheads, even with the pale skin.

FIYAH!

Okay, let’s be honest here. I LOVE all drunk girls.

Now why do I hate this day? Simple.

These dudes.

Every single year it seems I get into a fight/shoving match/altercation with Bostonians.
Not that I have problems with Boston folks. One of my closest pals in college was from Boston. We get along fine most of the rest of the year, outside of baseball season. I even respect their comic dedication to their sports teams. It’s ridiculous but kinda cute.

But like clockwork, every year on the 17th I meet some dude that pronounces bar like “bah” and says “wicked” a lot and we get into a dust-up.
Hell, it happens even when I’m somewhat sober. I was on my way to the strip last year to meet up with Spin, Lazer, Rhinox, Maubz and Darth Fader, Dark Lord of the Fifth at the fabulous Imperial Palace. On my way there I got into a minor shoving match with this loudmouth Southie. The only thing that saved him was this small Asian man shaking his head at me, telling me to move on.

Like Egg Shen. Without the booze and lightning.

On the plus side though, me and Spin did accomplish a day goal of killing a Heineken mini-keg.


We carried it like a boombox at times.
I realize this will probably happen anywhere I go. I’ll probably run into a random Boston dude in Dublin, Ireland saying car like cah (I mean I met a Brooklyn guy randomly in Tokyo-“Dude, I’m from Park Slope”).
The worst year was the one where I was almost stuck in Boston. Let’s not even start that trip down memory lane.
Maybe it’s because I’m a black guy with an Irish name. Maybe that’s just asking for a fight? I don’t wear stupid buttons, hats, etc. though. Why do Celtics fans have a mad on for me on this day? Is it the “gravy-face”?


Maybe I just need to work on my swing.

Anyway, have a great St. Pat’s Day and drink one for me.

As for me, I’ll be at Mcmullan’s Irish Pub just up the road for a few hours after work. Gotta get my nachos on but you can come for the Guinness and Sangria.
My time there is dependent on if it is filled with crazies, if it is too smoky, if Vu-2 (an U-2 cover band) is performing or if I get involved in a Bean Town brawl.
My money is on the latter but maybe I’ll enjoy the luck of the Irish this year.

Erin Go Bragh, biatches.

Fiesta de Aniversario

It’s a random Thursday in a month so that can only mean one thing- Up All Day Art Show time. YAY!!!!

Really, this is one of the few times in the month I get some actual g-damn culture in this town. There is like a vacuum of intelligence here that I only experience outside of the circle of my friends. I’m still trying to figure out if that is it just being a by-product of this being a tourist town or do people actively go out of their way to remain ignorant.
Don’t get me wrong- I experience this in many places but it seems much more prevalent here for some reason.

Anyway, so, art show means Caramel at Bellagio- Home of the Four Dollar Sprite. I invite M. Santos to roll with me because he wants to hang out with grown-ups and have real convos and you WILL NOT get that almost at all at my house but I don’t hear back from him. His loss. This night is going to be worth it just for the about 30 minutes I experience in the middle of the evening.

I greet UAD2 at the door and run into UAD1 on my way in. It’s pretty sparse at this point at Caramel because I made it from work in record time. The only soul I recognize is Capt. Sparrow, who is getting his Peter Parker on. We stand around and look at art and talk. I feel very hip and grown up at that point. Highly classy.

The last time I was classy.

As more people came in, I doodled on some paper, gave my greetings and drank my tasty non-alcoholic beverages. Good slow sober times.
Eventually I bump into KITTYKAT engaged in deep conversation with this young woman. KITTYKAT introduced me and then went to “find UAD1.”

Right....

I turned and proceeded to make small talk with this young woman who I will call Sharer. She is a decent looking woman and seemed very nice. She said she appreciated having a conversation with someone and liked that I was willing to communicate.
This is when my 30 minutes of “What the Frak?” happened.
I call this woman the Sharer because she proceeded to share everything with me.
I mean EVERYTHING. I was learning shite about this woman I didn’t even ask. Likes, dislikes, personal history for the past 8 years. I felt like a potential employer. My contribution to this conversation was very little, if at all.

KITTYKAT had set me up.

This chick was not just talking but also suggesting. Like, when someone tells you they always wanted to do something with someone, the “someone” is, 90% of the time, you. Yeah. That kind of suggesting.

But it wasn’t happening cap'n for a number of reasons, not the least being I was sober and don’t get involved with married folks. I played the gentleman and walked to her car and promised to look her up on one of the social networking sites online, which I did. (Hopefully, she is reading this and knows that we are cool if she is a bit talky)
I return to the party and KITTYKAT is laughing. I was fooled yet again by the midwest charm, donchaknow?
I say in the back of my head “A blood feud was begun that day, woman....”

Let the Kumite begin!

I also learned that I might had met her at an earlier event but I was drunk and occupied with making another friend at the time who is at this event tonight as well. Eventually a few more people, like Spin, Smashley and Smoove had shown up and we are off to The Bank.

I had been to The Bank maybe two previous times and both times are a haze of porn stars, liquor, fake boobs, dancing with brides-to-be, protecting their bride’s maids from being roofied and losing my friends for the night somewhere in the process. This time would be different.

We arrive and immediately are ushered to the VIP section above the dancefloor. You know, away from the peasants.

Dance, plebes! Dance!


It is at this point that I make the sober connection that I had also been here when this place was Light about two years ago. I don’t admit that to anyone until now.
The VIP is nice and we get a bottle and like 2 rounds of shot. I get more cranberry juice. Gotta stay regular.

Don't touch, Sean....


I eventually get bored of not dancing (my main complaint about any VIP) and make my way downstairs to the main floor.

Plus, I spotted potential vics...

As I’m standing there swaying to the beat, I realize something- I kind of hate clubs. As I said in an earlier post, it’s pretty much the same shite with just different window dressing.

I also realized that when you are sober the potential people to dance with is whittled down. Pretty girls aren’t dancing with you (I mean, not me but definitely you) because they are either taken, having a “girls’ night out”, waiting for someone to buy them high-priced drinks or just playing games.
Oddly enough the unattractive ones are doing the same thing except for waiting for someone to buy them drinks. (This reminds me of a funny story with two of my boys hanging out...e-mail me so I can tell you) I get bored standing around refusing to lower my dancing/dry humping standards and make my way back to the VIP.
I run into UAD1 and Kittykat who are leaving. It’s about midnight at that point I think.* I go to their car and get my jacket. I decide to walk home and see if I get stop by cops or asked for drugs.

Normally where it starts.

I pass by Diablo’s and I like the music so I go in to use the facilities. You know, the bathroom with the lil stick figures with horns.

That's Spanish and evil for "place to pee."


Unfortunately, the upstairs is closed for the night but I enter the bathroom anyway and encounter dude breaking a Man Law in the bathroom- using the center urinal in a row of 3. I take his man card and tell him he can apply to get it back in 45 business days.


Tough love. He’ll learn.