Corned Beef and Garbage

Xin chào,

Happy Tuesday, boys and girls. I trust you are all recovered from St. Patrick’s Day by this point. I personally just woke up about 5 minutes ago, but I feel ok… nothing a little black coffee and strychnine can’t fix. The pro at the golf course was very kind for not calling the cops when the sprinklers roused me from my deep and enchanted slumber. After I found my pants, I decided it was blog time. Actually, for the most part, I behaved myself on Saturday…at least that is what I assume, since I don’t remember anything. I actually went to sleep at 8:00 PM, and woke up the next day around 9:30. Not bad. It certainly beats waking up naked in a Motel 6, chained to the radiator with a bottle jammed up your ass. St. Patty’s Day is mostly for amateurs, especially when it falls on a Saturday. However, like Thanksgiving, I do love the celebration of sinful overindulgence. I want to talk about this holiday, and the Irish culture that we Massholes so dearly embrace. When you start hearing those bagpipes, and the booze is in your blood , you just want to bury a battle axe into a British infantryman’s helmet on some Middle Ages battlefield… or at least throw a brick at somebody. Preferably a WASP. I heard that circus clowns are based on Irish people… think about this one for a second. Circus clowns have curly red hair, pasty white skin, big red noses, they wear plaid and they stumble around all the time. It makes a lot of sense to me.

I would not have ventured into the streets of Boston on Saturday were it not for some slick talking by a friend of mine. When I woke up on Sunday morning, it felt like my head was between a blacksmith’s hammer and the anvil. Sadly, I did not make it out to South Boston to observe the parade. It was too bad, because it was a rather nice day. Thank goodness for Global Warming. You know I am kidding , and obviously I don’t believe in that balderdash. It is all just fantasies cooked up by hippies and communists to promote drum circles and such. I’ve said it before, but I don’t trust those environmentalists. People with silver ponytails and names like “Moon” or “Flower” can’t be taken seriously, unless you’ve got questions about strains of marijuana or Grateful Dead bootlegs. Whenever I see some greasy hippy with dreadlocks, it makes me wish I carried hedge shears everywhere I went, just in case there is a need for some ambush barbering.  If there is man-made global warming, I am all for it. An early spring following a mild winter? Don’t mind if I do! If it means I never have to shovel snow again, I will burn a pile of styrofoam every solstice to honor my vengeful sun god. It should be pretty easy, too, since I just got a new job at the styrofoam peanut factory.

…back to Southie and the parade. I’ve never felt safe in South Boston, as though at any moment I could have a bottle broken over my head and get my ass kicked… and that doesn’t even account for the men who live there. Simply put, I don’t feel like I fit in. It might be because I don’t have an outrageous Boston accent…or a neck tattoo…or fetal alcohol syndrome. They say alcohol is a very powerful drug. I would disagree, however, and say that alcohol is more like a very powerful magic potion. Do you know of any other substance on earth that can turn a pig into a fox? Or one that makes you as charming, or as good at singing on the sidewalk at 3:00 AM? No, friends, this is hardly a drug; it is a magnificent elixir and cure-all for anything that ails you…except for alcoholism. It doesn’t cure that.

We were out throwing back Guinness on the holiday, all the while sinking deeper into the bottomless depths of drunken shamelessness, and one of the guys at the table ordered the spiciest smelling buffalo wings I have ever encountered. My eyes were watering, and I was getting dizzy from their piquancy. He offered me one, and I admonished him for his bold and reckless selection. I pointed out that one of the main objectives on St. Patrick’s Day is to not shit your pants, and this was extremely counterproductive and not an effective means to an end…unless you’re trying to be mean to your end. I imagine once these Napalm-flavored wings started wreaking havoc on your guts, you wouldn’t even make it to the bathroom before your shoes were full of liquid shit. Also, the next morning when he wakes up after a night of hitting the sauce and he has to go melt the porcelain, he might not like a physical sensation that is probably very similar to somebody putting out a cigar on his asshole.

Anyway, take from this blog what you will. Maybe it was a little bit too scatological (vocab word for you), but I  thought it was funny. Next time we meet, I plan to go over hipsters, and the return of the Occupy Wall Street movement. As far as the title of this post goes, back in the day, my grandmother used to cook corned beef and cabbage now and again, which my grandfather would affectionately call “corned beef and garbage”. I wonder if being a jerk is hereditary.

MJG