St. Patrick\’s Day: What I Got

Do the words \”Happy St. Patrick\’s Day!\” make you dry heave? Then you didn\’t drink enough this past Saturday!

I spent the day with my wife and mother-in-law, which isn\’t nearly as bad as you might think. We spent St. Patrick\’s Day together back in 2003, and it was a very fun time. So we looked to recreate that, with mixed results. Come along!

My day started out Kip\’s, which is the restaurant attached to the Minneapolis Marriott West. Much better than what you would expect from a hotel restaurant. I spent most of my St. Paddy\’s Day last year at Kip\’s. Even though the beer was expensive, and it was crowded, and food was hard to come by… it was still a good time. This year we only planned to hit the Irish Brunch Buffet, because there is nothing better than a meal of Fish & Chips and Corned Beef & Cabbage to prep your stomach for a day of beer.

The food was good, which isn\’t a surprise, for Irish food Kip\’s does a nice job. The music was the Tim Malloy\’s, which I had heard of, but never seen in person. We only stayed for a couple of hours, but the band was quite good, and I would definitely recommend checking them out if you\’re looking for a fun random mix of Irish drinking music, folk, country, and rock. Very good time.

After Kip\’s we headed downtown to hit O\’Donovan\’s. As we arrived the bag-pipers were just leaving, so we followed them to their next stop, which was The Shout House in Block E, which was relatively quiet. After the bag-pipers finished, the dueling piano players came up on stage and played a lot of 80\’s songs, and were asking for requests. Finally out of desparation Chelle requested Whiskey In the Jar as something that wasn\’t Journey, and was Irish. Of course the two piano player didn\’t know that song. Nor did they know a couple of the other Irish song requests. The best feature of the Shout House was that it cost me $6.50 for 3 beers instead of $6 for one beer at most any other place. I\’d like to try it again on a weekend night, it\’s a great idea for a bar and could be a lot of fun (with more talented/knowledgable pianists).

Eventually we got to O\’Donovan\’s. Back in 2003 we had a great time here. We got there early in the day and spend many…many hours here. It was an older, old-school Irish drinking crowd. Much different vibe this year. First off was the $5 cover. Considering the Irish beers were $6 each, I don\’t think a cover charge was necessary. The crowd was also considerably younger, drunker, and just all around annoying really. There was no one playing any music for the first hour we were there. Eventually Seamus (who is a somewhat regular performer here) took the stage. Quality Irish music, which is what you are really looking for on St. Paddy\’s Day, but then the oddest thing happened. Seamus left the stage to let someone from the audience take the stage and play a song. He played \”What I Got\” by Sublime…and the crowd went nuts!

I was baffled. It was like ever 22-24 year old (which was quite a bit of the crowd) just stopped what they were doing and sang along. It was the strangest thing. Is \”What I Got\” some sort of Generation Y theme song or something? Maybe Sublime is just more popular than I thought they were. It was like if the place was filled with 30-somethings and someone started playing a Bon Jovi song.

Shortly after that it was time to leave and catch the Minneapolis Parade (Realize who I was with. It obviously was not my choice to catch the parade). On the good side, it gave us all a chance to sober up before driving home to take care of Luna and Solei.

On the bad side, the parade started a half hour late (insert your own Drunken Irish joke here). The Minneapolis parade was a traveshamockery. While it wasn\’t a horrible day outside, it was crisp, and windy, and damn cold waiting for every Irishman who owns a pickup to drive by. There was only one float of any sort, and the last half of the \”parade\” was RVs and vans from the local radio stations, who weren\’t even playing Irish music. There was only one set of bag pipers, and one Alumni marching band. I could go on, but I\’ve been working on blocking this out of my mind since it happened. For future reference, if you are dying to see a St. Patrick\’s Day parade in the Twin Cities, get up and drive to St. Paul for their parade. Just trust me on this.

It was obvious that we weren\’t as young as we used to be. After 6 hours of drinking, it was time to head home for the evening. Looking back at the day, it was still a good time, but I think I enjoy St. Patrick\’s Day more when it is not on a weekend. There\’s something more fun when you sneak out of work early and are tipsy by 3:30 on a Wednesday. You can get to your favorite pub and grab a seat early. The weekdays keep down the crowds, and especially thin out the number of annoying drunkards (I\’m looking right at you 22 year old stupid girls) who are prone to throwing up and dropping their glasses on the floor. Didn\’t you go to college so you could learn how to drink!

All in all a good time, but I\’m already looking forward to Monday March 17th, 2008!