The Solemn Feast of St Patrick, Social Distancing Edition

Today being the Solemn Feast of St Patrick, I have to note that, for once, it's actually a solemn one. The parade in Manhattan, as well as the local parades of last weekend and this coming weekend, was cancelled. I had actually had a big beer week planned, with bibulous activities scheduled for last night, tonight, and Saturday pretty much all-day, but the quarantine has pretty much caused those to evaporate. I DID, however, use a portion of a bottle of beer last night to make a Welsh rabbit out of some sharp cheddar I had purchased before the dairy aisles were cleaned out.

It's been a pretty quiet day, all told, though the supermarket was fairly busy when I went this morning (sure enough, there were chicken hearts aplenty, normal suburbanites haven't twigged on to the fact that they are muscle, like a breast or thigh). People were quiet and reserved, but well-behaved... no fistfights in the paper goods section that I've seen.

It'll be an uneventful Paddy's Day, one spent responsibly, a day on which we beseech the Blessed St Patrick to drive the COVID-19 from these shores... though Tullamore Dew might be the germicide of choice today.


There's no wearing of the green
When you're under quarantine.
The streets of New York City,
Are the emptiest I've seen.


This is, of course, a play on The Wearing of the Green:





That's a fine rebel song, and it shares a tune with the even better rebel song The Rising of the Moon:





No rebellion for me, not today... it's a time to knuckle under for the next couple of weeks.

The Countdown to the Solemn Feast of St Patrick 2022

There's a countdown going on, and I'm not talking about the countdown to WW3 right now, though I wouldn't discount that.  I'm talking about the countdown to the Solemn Feast of St Patrick, which pretty much had been canceled for the past two years.

It's the custom of this blog to count the days to St Paddy's Day by posting videos of Irish music, typically traditional songs or modern ballads rooted in traditional or historical themes.  Today, though, we begin this year's countdown with a band that Friend of the Bastard J-Co mentioned today in a text conversation.  Zerra One, a new wave band formed in 1982, actually supported such 80s juggernauts as the Cure, U2, and the Boomtown Rats on tour, but quite found mainstream success.  The song I remember being played on the storied WLIR in my youth was Rescue Me, which peaked at 82 on the UK charts (CONTENT WARNING: 80s hair):

It's a good song, with a workmanlike sound, not very distinct from a bunch of other songs which became monster hits.  As a result of writing this blog post, I found an earlier single with a rawer sound, and will spend some time listening to more of their oeuvre:

Special thanks go to J-Co for reminding me that this existed... there's no trip like the nostalgia trip!

Countdown to the Solemn Feast of St Patrick: The Good Coulter

In keeping with tradition here, I spend the first couple of weeks of March counting down to St Patrick's Day. Today, I'll post a weepie that I posted before as a tangent to another post. The Town I Loved So Well, by Phil Coulter, describes the transition of his native Derry from a hardscrabble working-class town with not enough work, to a shell of a town, bombed out by The Troubles.

Grab a handkerchief, you're going to need it. At best, the life that Mr Coulter describes is far from idyllic:


In the early morning the shirt factory horn
Called women from Creggan, the moor, and the bog
Whilst the men on the dole played a mother's role
Fed the children and then walked the dog
And when times got tough, there was just about enough
And they saw it through without complaining
For deep inside was a burning pride
For the town I loved so well


With his talent, he was able to find a way out of the hard-knock town, the dream of many a striver:


There was music there in that Derry air
Like a language that we, we all could understand
I remember the day that I earned my first pay
When I played in a small pick-up band
There I spent my youth, and to tell you the truth
I was sad to leave it all behind me
For I learned about life, and I found a wife
In the town I loved so well.


Upon his return, though, he finds that his town has been riven by sectarian violence and government repression:


But when I returned, how my eyes have burned
To see how a town could be brought to it's knees
By the armoured cars and the bombed-out bars
And the gas that hangs on to every breeze
Now the army's installed by that old gas yard wall
And the damned barbed wire gets higher and higher
With their tanks and their guns, oh my god, what have they done
To the town I loved so well?


The song ends on a cautiously optimistic note, a wish for peace, though Mr Coulter mourns a past which is irrecoverable... so as not to spoil the climax of the song, I'll let you listen for yourselves:





As with a lot of modern Irish music, the song has been covered by a plethora of performers, with Luke Kelly and the Dubliners and Paddy Reilly singing particularly choice renditions of the song.

Wipe your tears, my dear readers, Phil Coulter didn't only write tearjerkers... along with Glasgow's Bill Martin, he wrote this bouncy little number:





You can't cry all the time... especially not on a Saturday night.

Regarding the title, the bad Coulter would be the one perhaps best known for her upcoming role in Sharknado 3.

Staggering Towards St. Patrick's Day

I am of the opinion that holidays should be structured like Hanukkah- multi-day celebrations, rather than one-offs. I inaugurated the St. Patrick's Day season last night by meeting up with an old friend and his co-workers at The Brazen Fox in White Plains, NY. I had just spent a few hours at work explaining the new computerized timesheet system to a co-worker who had never used a computer before (en español) when I got the call to arms glasses. It was a splendid night, spent quaffing dirty big pints of Smithwick's while surrounded by beautiful women. The highlight of the evening was playing "wingmen" to a couple of visiting Brazilian guys, and helping them meet a couple of really pretty Brazilian girls, with whom they hit it off swimmingly. Yeah, it's nice to perform an occasional mitzvah.

Anyway, as it's my wont to post occasional music videos, I'll honor the season, and my paternal grandmother's Roscommon heritage by stressing songs by Irish bands for the next couple of weeks.

Perhaps the first rock band to incorporate Irish traditional music (and mythological themes) into their music was Horslips, so thank them for such diverse groups as The Pogues, Black 47, In Tua Nua, and a host of other worthies (hell, U2's first album had the track An Cat Dubh on it, not a trad song, but one in Gaelic).

The song Dearg Doom (a mash-up of Gaelic and English best rendered as "Red Destroyer") comes from the band's 1973 The Táin album, a musical interpretation of the epic Táin Bo Cuailnge ("The Cattle Raid of Cooley"). The annotated Horslips lyrics page, besides giving a basic gist of the song's meaning, has a funny item about the genesis of the song (which is an unholy hybrid of traditional epic and Marvel Comics, conflating Cúchulainn with Dr. Doom), and a couple of nice quotes from Phil Chevron, a founding member of the Radiators from Space, who joined the Pogues for "Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash" and subsequent albums.


The blazing guitar riff that anchors the song is the traditional O'Neill's Cavalry (check out this sweet acapella version). The video reminds me of Spinal Tap's Stonehenge, because of the band's outfits, and the song's theme. I'd love to know if Stonhenge was inspired by this performance. Please note the chainmail "glove" and silver body paint on the lead singer's hand, a tribute to the divine king Nuada of the Silver Hand (known to HPL fans as "Hoary Nodens"):




Please note, this song became a number one dance hit in Germany. Who'd a thunk it? Additionally, in 2004, the Decembrists released an album titled The Táin.

Whiskey Joe

What subject is more appropriate for the runup to the Solemn Feast of St Patrick than the price of whiskey?  In a move which will please all partakers of the rare auld mountain dew, the Biden administration is dropping tariffs on Irish and Scotch whiskeys, which were 'collateral damage' in a dispute over aviation industry subsidies.  Yeah, in order to punish the EU for unfair protections for Airbus, Trump made whiskey, imported cheeses, and olives more expensive... something that I considered a personal attack.  For four months, the whopping 25% tariff on these products will be suspended as a more permanent solution is figured out.

A big strong man like me shouldn't be afraid of a little boom boom, so I always keep whiskey in the house.  Since the pandemic began, and my tavern patronage pretty much ended, I haven't been drinking as much beer as I was accustomed to- bottles really are no substitute for a freshly drawn pint of draft beer.  My regular drinking whiskey is Tullamore Dew, which is smooth as watered silk and sweet as mother's milk.  When I'm not feeling so nationalistic, and a Scotch is welcome, there's always Balvenie single malt, and Glenmorangie (I'm partial to the port-barrel aged stuff).  It'll be nice not to have to be penalized for drinking the Water of Life.

This being the runup to the Solemn Feast of St Patrick (which, like last year, looks to be shaping up to be a non-event, another casualty of the pandemic), I figure I'd post a video for the Pogues song Streams of Whiskey, in which Shane MacGowan dreams about meeting the poet/playwright/revolutionary Brendan Behan:

As Cousin Shane from the Old Country sang, 'there's nothing ever solved by a wet thing called a tear', not even a trade war.  I've noted before that I would have no qualms about toasting Joe Biden, and would even sing Fields of Athenry for the man... now such a toast would be less expensive.  Even better, I'd love to get Uncle Malachy and bonnie Sandy from the Bronx, and we could serenade the man properly.

We Continue Our Countdown to 2022's Solemn Feast of St Patrick

I've been preoccupied for much of the past week, so I haven't been keeping up on my traditional countdown to the Solemn Feast of St Patrick.  This year, I have been posting about lesser known Irish rock bands, and today's post concerns The Fatima Mansions, led by curmudgeonly frontman Cathal Coughlan.  From their 1989 debut, 'Against Nature', here's Only Losers Take th Bus: 

The band played on for not-quite-a-decade, releasing their final album 'Lost in the Former West' in 1994. To illustrate the band's blend of hard-rock and scathing social commentary, here's Popemobile to Paraguay:

Mr Coughlan is still releasing material and holding the powerful to account.  In light of the revelations about Tuam and the Magdalene Laundries, I will note that he's been right all along.

The Solemn Feast of St Patrick

Oddly enough, I didn't post a big runup to St Patrick's Day. I chalk it up to the fact that this year has been an insane cavalcade of crises and scandals. Well, 'tis the day itself, and I'm going to run out for a beer before heading over to some good friends' house for a fine Irish-American corned beef and cabbage dinner. Time to post a couple of videos, like I typically do to celebrate.

The visit of the openly gay taoiseach Leo Varadkar to the US has been entertaining, with wags on both sides of the Atlantic taking the Mickey concerning Mike Pence's private breakfast with Mr Varadkar. I'd hazard to guess that Pence had bangers on his mind, if not the menu, IYKWIMAITTYD. At any rate, same-sex marriage has been legal for almost two years, so bigotry really isn't an appealing message to the Irish people, least of all the openly-gay, half-Indian Leo Varadkar.

As a show of scorn for the current administration, I figure I'll post two tunes by the late, great Phil Chevron. The first is Under Clery's Clock, a song about a closeted gay man worrying about whether or not his lover will meet him under the clock at the now-defunct Dublin department store Clerys:





The second song is Phil's incredible emigration song Thousands Are Sailing:





The United States took in refugees from Ireland throughout Irish history- people fleeing famine, war, poverty, and oppression made their way to these shores and, to put it in the current idiom, Made America Great... just like all immigrant groups did. Sláinte to everybody reading this, bad luck to the orange ogre, and celebrate your heritage. The Irish are a diaspora people, and have intermarried and intermingled with people from all over the world. We have an especial affinity for Mexicans, another strike against the assholes running this country.

The Eve of the Solemn Feast of St. Patrick

In keeping with the trend of posting music videos by Irish bands in the run-up to St. Patrick's Day, I feel obligated to post a video by another criminally unsung band. Fronted by the mind-bogglingly lovely Leslie Dowdall (although a young Sinead O'Connor was briefly with the band), In Tua Nua (best rendered in English as "A New Tribe") combined rock music with traditional folk music to form a melodic backdrop to the rich alto vocals of Ms. Dowdall. The band's first album, to my knowledge, was never released in the states, but their second album, The Long Acre, produced by Don Dixon, received some airplay in the New York metro area. This is another album which is all killer/no filler, from the blistering opening track Woman on Fire to the tender Sweet Lost Soul. The subject matter ranges from critiques of male chauvinism (the aforementioned Woman on Fire and religious oppression (the truly remarkable The Innocent and the Honest Ones, an agnostic hymn that, fortunately, can be heard on the band's MySpace page), to the economic hardships of the time (the title track of the album). The band broke up soon after the release of The Long Acre, a few years before The Cranberries and Riverdance ushered in an early 90s Irish renaissance in the U.S. (of course, zrm would rip my face off if I didn't mention Black 47 as an Irish-American band which rose to prominence in this era as well). If The Long Acre had been released four years later, it probably would have been a smash... Watch, and fall in love:

My personal favorite:


Their highest charting single:


Do check out the other videos, the "Self Aid" video for Seven Into the Sea is a real treat.

Of Local Interest

Today marks the second annual St Patrick's Day parade in my neighborhood, which is pretty solidly Irish and Irish-American. The official Yonkers St Patrick's Day parade takes place downtown, near City Hall, but everybody hightails it to McLean Ave, the heart of the tavern district, afterwards.

Perhaps the best thing about this year's neighborhood parade is that the Grand Marshal is local luminary Joanie Madden of the supergroup Cherish the Ladies. Here's Joanie Madden displaying her virtuosity on the tin whistle and flute with the rest of the band:





For our antipodean friends, here's the band doing a number called The Hills of New Zealand:





You know what other locale is known for its hills?

Counting Down to the Solemn Feast of St Patrick

Since this is the week on which the Solemn Feast of St Patrick begins, so as is tradition around here, I'll be posting videos by Irish musicians for the next few days. I think we all need a break from 'Murrican politics for a while.

Today, I'm posting a couple of videos by Dublin band Cactus World News, whose Bono-produced album Urban Beaches was released in 1986. The band had a large sound, clearly influenced by U2's musical stylings, with edgy (heh) guitars and earnest, guileless vocal deliveries. Here's a live performance by the band, performing their songs Worlds Apart and Years Later (WARNING: video depicts mullet):





The band formed in 1984, but their high point was definitely 1986, when they released their debut album and performed at the Self Aid benefit concert. Here's the band performing The Bridge, which had been their 1985 debut single:





Personally, I enjoyed the band's output, but in retrospect, I guess they didn't sufficiently differentiate themselves from U2... who needs a pastiche when the real deal is still touring and recording? The band broke up in 1991, but they recently reformed and successfully funded a pledge campaign to release an album of unreleased tracks. I'm glad for these guys, they always seemed like a good bunch of fellas.

The Solemn Feast of St Patrick

Today being the solemn feast of St Patrick, I decided to use a carry-over vacation day from last year so I could pour some libations (down my gullet). Before I head out, I just have to rant... in the wake of the horrors that have been exposed in Irish institutions that masqueraded as helpers of the indigent, that the Irish people have long been preyed upon by authority figures, by bigoted foreign conquerors (who attempted a genocide), by the various predatory religious hierarchies who abused and divided the common people. I look at my kindly, generous friends and neighbors and I wonder how a people so given to hospitality and good-heartedness could have let their worst elements wield such power over them. The popular vote to legalize same-sex marriage in Ireland signaled a major shift away from the patriarchal dominance structure that prevailed even after Irish independence was gained, a shift from authoritarianism to a generous-spiritedness more natural to the tribe.

To a large extent, the Irish (like the Jews and African-Americans) are a diaspora people, forced to leave their homelands by hostile outside forces, and finding ways to not only survive, but to thrive despite the hardships they have faced. The heritage that I celebrate is the tenacity, the hard work and sheer grit that my forebears exhibited, and that I endeavor to maintain. For the same reason, I admire Jewish and African-American people, who have inherited the same determination to overcome oppression. The flip side of that is that I find Irish-American authoritarians (I'm looking at a couple of FOX hosts here) to be particularly repugnant- they are the sort of people who have thrown in their lot with the oppressors, rather than the underdogs of the world.

I'll be heading out for a wee dram or two... or three... Before I head out, here's a number from Mary Courtney, friend of the Bastard and Star of the County Bronx,





The Patriot Game, with lyrics by Dominic Behan, perfectly encapsulates the conflicted nature of the Irish people, the morass of patriotism, sectarianism, nationalism, and violence that has so long held sway on Paddy's Green Shamrock Shore. Things have gotten a lot better in the past twenty-years, which is reason enough to raise a glass of Tullamore Dew in celebration.

The Eve of the Solemn Feast of St Patrick

Tomorrow being the Solemn Feast of St Patrick, I plan on spending all day telling the beers beads. Tonight, I figured I'd post a couple of videos by the Corrs, a family group often described as "the most physically gifted band in the world", an assessment I'd have to agree with. One of their most celebrated instrumentals is Toss the Feathers, a sprightly number which showcases their virtuosity:





My personal favorite song by the Corrs is their take on I Know My Love, which they recorded with trad supergroup The Chieftains:





I plan on hitting the pubs church fairly early tomorrow- I'll probably set the alarm for the crack of dawn so I can put a corned brisket on to simmer for a few hours before finishing it off in the oven (I like to brown it a little, a pinkish gray slab of meat isn't all that appealing)... it's not good to drink pray on an empty stomach. I made sure to buy a couple of "beeves" while the sales were on, as I occasionally get a serious jones for a corned beef sandwich on rye. This year, I wasn't ambitious enough to get any boiling bacon, though my local butcher brines a mean bacon.

The 2017 Runup to the Solemn Feast of St Patrick

I am firmly of the opinion that holidays should be modeled on Hanukkah, at least as far as duration goes... they should be multi-day affairs. Today, I am working an uncharacteristic day shift- the local municipality's St Patrick's Day parade takes place today, and management has allowed the town to use our main parking lot as an overflow lot for parade participants. I had to arrive before 9AM to open up the lot, though we didn't get a trickle of cars in until almost noon. It's been a quiet day, the weather is cold and windy, so nobody has shown any desire to linger on the premises. Basically, I've spent most of the day watching videos. One peculiarity of the parade is that it takes place on the main thoroughfare in the region, rather than the main commercial drag of the town, which is not majorly significant from a transportation point-of-view. A couple of people have shown up in the parking lot looking for a way around the area... after an initial faux-Mainer 'you can't get there from here', I explain to them how they can go north and east to get south.

It's tough getting around the area on a day like this, which reminds me of one of my favorite 'trad' Irish tunes, The Rocky Road to Dublin, which recounts, in humorous fashion, the travails encountered by a young man traveling from Tuam in search of work. Here's a great version by the Pogues, a band near and dear to my heart:





This track was never featured on any of the band's albums, though they featured an instrumental version of the song in their medley on the album 'If I Should Fall from Grace with God'. I'm hoping that I don't have a 'Rocky Road to Yonkers' when my relief comes in a half-hour or so.

The Solemn Feast of St Patrick

Today marks the most solemn Feast of St Patrick. Today, I will be performing my religious devotions, among which are telling the beads beers... one pint of beer for each Ave, and after ten, a shot of Tullamore Dew for a Paternoster. Religious fervor is very hard on the liver, doncha know.

Because I will be occupied by my devotions all day, I figured I'd post a video of the Dubliners singing The Rocky Road to Dublin






Back in January, I posted a video of the Dropkick Murphys performing a rendition of the song. As I wrote back then, the song is pretty much 19th Century punk. Here's hoping that the road to Yonkers isn't so rocky tonight, unless by rocky we mean Rocky Sullivan's.

Lá Fhéile Pádraig Sona Daoibh, my dears!

Hopefully, the Start of a Tradition

Today marks the first (of many, I hope) McLean Avenue Fall Festival. McLean Avenue runs along the Yonkers/Bronx border, and forms (along with Katonah Avenue in the Bronx) the main commercial drag of Woodlawn, a Bronx neighborhood that has "spilled over" to Southeast Yonkers. The two roads are, to put it waggishly, the "tavern district"- I live within reasonable walking distance of a dozen pubs. An old friend of mine from high school, a third generation local business owner (and the most solid of solid guys- still married to his high school sweetheart, employs a lot of neighborhood high-school and college kids), is one of the organizers of the event.





The City of Y______ is closing down McLean Avenue, and there will be two stages for live bands. A couple of local radio stations (including my favorite local commercial station) will be broadcasting. Heineken, which has its U.S. headquarters in nearby White Plains, NY, is a corporate sponsor (it's not my beer of choice by a long shot, but if some nubile lass dressed as a little Dutch girl wants to give me free Heiney's for promotional considerations, I won't say no).

I've worked a graveyard shift, but you can bet your sweet bippie that I'll be at the festival, even if I have to nap on a bench. I figure I'll iron my ears for a bit before hitting the festival, have a couple of beers, sample some of the culinary delights offered by the local eateries, shake my ass a bit, then get my sleep on before working the graveyard again. I want to see this event succeed, because I love, love, love being able to have a beer in the great outdoors when the sun is bright in the sky.

UPDATE: The street festival was a great success. The beer was flowing, the bands delivered the goods, and the local merchants were out in force. The local liquor store was giving out free samples of Jameson's whisky. The local restaurants were in high gear- I sampled some pork chicharrones and a pastellito from a new Dominican restaurant, and had a Scotch egg from the local butcher shop. What's not to like? My old friend who was involved in the organization of the event mentioned that this was "halfway to St Patrick's Day" and there was an effort to move the parade from the road by city hall to the main commercial strip in the "tavern district". Hopefully, this movement will have "legs", there are no pubs near the route of the official St Patrick's Day parade, so the attendees have to drive across town to socialize afterwards. It makes sense to move the parade (of course I'd say that- I live a five minute walk from the Avenue). Here's the unofficial theme song of the neighborhood:

Begorrah, Can They Do That?

This time of year, I usually do a countdown to the Solemn Feast of St Patrick- I strongly feel that holidays should be long-form celebrations rather than single day affairs. Today, the Borough of Queens held it's gay-friendly, "St. Pat's For All". The mayor has stated that he will not participate in the main St Patricks' Day parade because the parade does not allow LGBT people to march openly. In Manhattan, the old rules of determining Irishness still apply:





That's right, folks, you can't be Irish if you're gay... Oscar Wilde and Phil Chevron, no mind their literary and artistic merits, could not have been Irish in Manhattan- not according to the parade organizers.

The real truth of the matter is quite different, as the people in the pews do not necessarily agree with the clergy. Here's the heart of the matter, AOH bigwigs please take heed of the "bolded" section:


„„In 2003, all major religious groups opposed same-sex marriage, with the exception of the religiously unaffiliated. Today, there are major religious groups on both sides of the issue. Religiously unaffiliated Americans (73%), white mainline Protestants (62%), white Catholics (58%), and Hispanic Catholics (56%) all favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry. A majority (83%) of Jewish Americans also favor legalizing same-sex marriage. Hispanic Protestants are divided; 46% favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to legally marry and 49% oppose. By contrast, nearly 7-in-10 (69%) white evangelical Protestants and nearly 6-in-10 (59%) black Protestants oppose same-sex marriage. Only 27% of white evangelical Protestants and 35% of black Protestants support same-sex marriage.


Sadly, these individuals don't seem to communicate among themselves, seeming to interpret each others' silence as tacit approval of the party line:


Roughly three-quarters (73%) of Catholics believe that most of their fellow congregants are opposed to same-sex marriage. However, Catholics who regularly attend church are in fact divided on the issue (50% favor, 45% oppose).


Speaking for myself, I sure hope that the mayor marches in the parade at sometime during his term.

St Paddy's Parade on Feast of San Giuseppe

If I were tasked to write a one-sentence history of Dad's side of the family, it would be: "Guido and Mary loved each other very much."  Accordingly, I take a syncretic approach to culture, I like to draw on all of the traditions of my ancestry to create a blended American, particularly Northeastern, set of practices.

On the liturgical calendar, today is the Feast of St Joseph, which is a big deal in Italy, celebrated by the consumption of zeppole or sfingi, which in their fanciest form are akin to French crullers stuffed with custard or cannoli cream.  They aren't exactly the sort of thing which should be consumed on a regular basis, but are a rich, decadent treat to be enjoyed in the middle of the austere Lenten season, much as the traditional Irish boiling-bacon-and-cabbage, and its American successor, corned-beef-and-cabbage, are Carnivale-style indulgences in the middle of Lent.

On the social calendar, today is the Yonkers St Patrick's Day parade, which returns after a two-year hiatus resulting from the pandemic.  I suspect it will be a triumphant return, though the weather is supposed to be inclement, because people generally want a return to some semblance of a normal social life.

In my syncretic fashion, I plan on celebrating both of these feast days, meeting up with friends for some socializing and maybe a bit of parade spectating... there are plenty of pubs in the neighborhood in which to duck to get out of the predicted rain, though getting rained on is a particularly Irish tradition, which in the US diaspora community is typically celebrated in the Pacific Northwest.

I should be easy to spot, I'll be the guy who can alternate between Marina and Roddy McCorley.  Wait a minute, this is Yonkers, so half of the parade attendees will be able to do this...

As an addendum, I have an ace up my sleeve... my very English coworker asked me if I needed him to work a double, covering my upcoming midnight shift so I can get loaded.  I told him that I figured on bending an elbow for a couple of hours this afternoon, so he should expect me.  He responded, "I'll consider covering for you." 

Now. THAT is a definite yes.

Irish Solidarity with Ukraine, Yonkers Style

Yesterday, the Feast of St Patrick was a raw, rainy day, not ideal for walking a parade route.  Tomorrow, the day of the Yonkers St Paddy's Day parade, the weather forecast calls for rain.  Some luck of the Irish, huh?  As luck would have it, today has been a glorious, sunny day, with temps currently at 69F (21C).  

Running errands locally, I noticed that a lot of folks were out and about, enjoying this beautiful weather.  Some of the local businesses, notably bars such as Kean's and Moriarty's, were flying the Ukrainian flag as well as the ubiquitous Old Glory and the Irish Tricolor.  I'm proud of the Irish response to the Ukrainian crisis, including aid to Ukrainian refugees and a convoy transporting aid to Ukraine.  I'm proud of my paternal grandmother's people, and I sense a kinship with the Ukrainians, who are so like the Irish martyrs eulogized in The Foggy Dew:

While the world did gaze with deep amaze
At those fearless men but few
Who bore the fight that freedom's light
Might shine through the foggy dew.

 

The Irish government released a video to show solidarity with Ukraine.  I note here that one does not simply play Fields of Athenry for just anybody:

 

There's a certain kindred feeling between two nations which have long had larger, aggressive, imperialist neighbors which have waged genocidal conflicts using famine as a weapon.  Here, on this gorgeous day in my beautiful Yonkers, there's a certain feeling of unreality about the whole tragedy.

Lest You Think I've Been Slacking Off...

Wow, a couple of days without a post... it's something I try to avoid, but I've been preoccupied with religious duties these past two days. On Wednesday, I attended services honoring the martyr, St. Leibowitz. Yesterday being the Solemn Feast of St. Patrick, I spent the day performing religious devotions. The fact that both occasions involved the pouring of copious libations down mah gullet is, as the cliche goes, central to my point.

I had planned a quick post on the 16th, but I wanted to keep the post taking the piss of AWR Hawkins (doesn't that sound pretentious as hell? Dub-mass thinks he's channneling Tolkien, but it comes across as simultaneously ham-fisted and twee... AWR? Asshole Writing Rants!), in the hopes that some chucklehead would wander in from Big Ho, and be eviscerated by the commentariat. Very rarely do I take a rightard to the woodshed, but those posts have been well received.

I'll work on the post-lecture recap tonight at work- I have to work the graveyard, so I'll have plenty of time to write. Today, the temperature is supposed to hit seventy degrees Fahrenheit, so I'm headed outdoors for some wholesome activity to get the blood flowing and to wear me out so I can zonk out this evening.

Doing the 'At-Home Tourist' Thing

The daughter of my youngest brother, Gomez, plays on a top-tier traveling ice hockey team, she is following in her father's footsteps, by which I mean skate ruts, though she isn't a goalie like her pop. This weekend, she has a tournament in New England, so Gomez, his wife, and the kids came up to New York City. It was my nephew's first visit, and my niece's first visit since she was a baby, when she came up for my brother Sweetums' wedding.

I met up with them in midtown Manhattan, the corner of 34th and 7th to be precise. We headed over to the Empire State Building, which I hadn't visited in years, and zipped up to the 86th floor observation deck, where the views are spectacular, though overcast conditions prevented us from seeing the wide horizons. I wish that the entrance fee was on a sliding scale correlating to percent-visibility, but that's me. As much as I love the Empire State Building, my favorite building in midtown is the Chrysler Building, with it's art deco style and prominent aquiline gargoyles:

We followed up with a circuitous route through midtown, stopping by the main branch of the NY Public Library, then hitting the gorgeous Grand Central Terminal so they could take a gander at the marvelous ceiling, adorned with depictions of constellations. They hit a Yankees branded store to pick up some merchandise for the obscure local baseball franchise (my brother's wife is from upstate New York, so she is a lifelong fan, as is my downstate-bred brother), then it was off to an NHL-themed store, where they could buy NY Rangers merch for my brother and niece, and Buffalo Sabres merch for my sister-in-law and nephew... they have a friendly rivalry in this instance.

I scored a major coup by treating them to a late lunch/early dinner at a pub which shares my sister-in-law's maiden name, and persuading the manager to sell us two of the bar's pint glasses, which bear not only the name, but the crest of the extended family. It was an unlooked-for victory, and the glasses are destined to be Christmas presents for Gomez' mother-in-law.

After dinner, we walked up the tony 5th Avenue, where we visited St Patrick's Cathedral, then headed up to... uhhh... Trump Tower, where my sister-in-law and the kids stopped inside, while Gomez and I lounged outside, talking about how New Yorkers have detested Trump since the 80s, when he reneged on his deal to save the decorative facades of the old Bonwit Teller building which he demolished to build his personal demesne. With this side-trek out of the way, we headed through the Artists' Gate of Central Park, and the kids climbed various large rock formations for funny photo ops. A brief saunter through the southern verge of the park, and it was out the Merchants' Gate and into Times Square, where we took in the spectacle of Spectacle. We pretty much kept to Broadway, which is lined mainly with retail stores, with an occasional restaurant. With a constant drizzle, hanging out outside wasn't that appealing a prospect. We eventually ended up a few blocks from where we began, the subway station at 42nd St in Times Square. We parted ways, with them headed downtown, and myself headed back to the Bronx, having gotten a lot of the touristy stuff out of the way so that we can concentrate on museums when next they head back up to my brother's ancestral homeland. Every once in a while, it's nice to play the tourist in the old hometown.