LizzieMaine
Bartender
- Messages
- 33,722
- Location
- Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
George McManus has a lot to answer for.
I haven't figured out the quote feature ...
(I did spot the quote button directly below)
...
Tell that to the folks who think it belongs to somebody called "St Patty" - whoever she is. (Maybe she is the lady who convinced the US that the Irish all eat "corned beef and cabbage", and drink watered down green beer? ).
If you think that's bad, there's an obnoxious furniture dealer in Maine that blankets all local TV channels with mind-numblingly stupid commercials for whatever holiday promotion they've got going. The cake was taken once and for all by this year's "Martin Luther King Mattress Special."
And late-stage capitalism marches on.
In this part of southern California Cinco de Mayo is, and has been for as long as I can remember, the bigger of the two "holidays" because of the large Latino population. Truth be told I don't notice much of a difference other than everyone is "Mexican" on one day and "Irish" on the other, but my wife and I rarely drink alcohol so we aren't participants. Alcohol consumption, barbecues, and cheesy "appliance sale" commercials are de rigueur on both days, so I suppose the only real difference is which country's flag is displayed in those commercials....Saint Patrick’s Day in the U. S. is mostly an excuse to drink too much. And to hold sales on appliances and granite countertops and all those other things that have not a ****ing thing to do with Ireland.
Cinco de Mayo is fast becoming another such observance. So grab your sombrero and gather up la señora y el niños and head on down to Big John’s Appliance Depot!
I hit the "+quote" button once and couldn't figure out what it was I did.
Over here in God’s Country “Saint Paddy” is more commonly used. My understanding is that it is a holdover from when “Paddy” was something of a slur aimed at Irish immigrants. (That, and “Mick” were the most common disparaging terms.) It appears that the Irish adopted it, after a fashion, and that took the sting out of it.
I have no recollection of anyone taking offense at “Paddy,” although my birth post-dates the famine by about a century, so there’s a fair amount of New Country history at play there.
Saint Patrick’s Day in the U. S. is mostly an excuse to drink too much. And to hold sales on appliances and granite countertops and all those other things that have not a ****ing thing to do with Ireland.
Cinco de Mayo is fast becoming another such observance. So grab your sombrero and gather up la señora y el niños and head on down to Big John’s Appliance Depot!
Locally produced TV ads are often so cheesy, with such amateurish production values, that a person might be left to think it’s deliberate.
What's with the watered down green beer? I've not heard of that one. What I do have a whinge with though is the way Coors bought the distribution rights to Caffrey's then ceased to distribute it throughout the US. At the same time Caffrey's on draught started to disappear from UK pubs. You can get it in pressurised cans, but that's a pale imitation of the original. Is it one of those General Motors Street Car conspiracies?Tell that to the folks who think it belongs to somebody called "St Patty" - whoever she is. (Maybe she is the lady who convinced the US that the Irish all eat "corned beef and cabbage", and drink watered down green beer? ).
What's with the watered down green beer? I've not heard of that one.
To which if The Bard had been born unto The Emerald Isle he may, or may not have said:Given that New England is heavily populated by the "Kiss Me I'm Irish" crowd, the green beer flows copiously out of the taps, down the gullets, and up again into the gutters every March 17th. You get used to it.
The dye in question was most likely simple laundry bluing, that stuff your grandmother used to create the illusion that her sheets were white. It's highly concentrated, and a few drops are enough to turn a whole barrel of yellow beer green.
Bluing is usually made with "Prussian blue," which is generally considered to be non-toxic, even though it's a form of cyanide salt. If anything it probably wasn't any more toxic than the beer.
Given that New England is heavily populated by the "Kiss Me I'm Irish" crowd, the green beer flows copiously out of the taps, down the gullets, and up again into the gutters every March 17th. You get used to it.
My mother was born on March 17th, and her name is, in fact, "Patty." So we just assume that St. Patty refers to her, even though she's a Methodist.