Showing posts with label st. patrick's day. Show all posts
Showing posts with label st. patrick's day. Show all posts
Posted by Jeff on 3/01/2008 12:31:00 AM

Last month, the Super Bowl and Mardi Gras took place within two days of each other, making it the most barf-tastic three-day stretch in recent memory.

Lord only knows how much alcohol was consumed and expelled during that magical time period. If Lindsey Lohan had anything to say about it, the answer is a lot.

"But wait!" you might be thinking. "What about this month? Isn't there anything to barf about in March?"

Actually, there's plenty to barf about this month. In fact, March might be the single barfiest month of the year, thanks to one internationally celebrated Irish holiday I like call "Throw Up Beer In The Back Of Your Friend's Car Day." Easter!

Just kidding. It's St. Patrick's Day. Or as Amy Winehouse likes to call it, Day.

So, why is St. Patrick's Day so throw up-y? Well, according to one reputable website, by which I mean Wikipedia, many American St. Patrick's Day celebrations center around "alcohol." And if it says it on Wikipedia, then you know it's true. Or that it's totally not true. You never know, which is part of why Wikipedia is awesome. It's like playing Russian roulette, only instead of bullets, you use facts.

For example, I looked up Tom Cruise on Wikipedia and couldn't find the words "creepy," "really creepy" or "super creepy" anywhere, so that shows you just how off it can be. I wonder if Wikipedia is where President Bush looked to see if Iraq had WMDs? Just a thought.

Anyway, the point is, a lot of people drink alcohol on St. Patrick's Day. As studies show, the abuse of alcohol can have some pretty horrifying consequences, such as hangovers, automobile accidents and voting for Mitt Romney. Who, according to Wikipedia, is made of 80 percent plastic. Then again, Wikipedia also claims that Romney has withdrawn from the presidential race. So there's an example of Wikipedia being right twice in a row.

But worse than any of these side effects, drinking can lead to barfing, which, according to several top scientists, sucks. And yet, no matter how many times they might learn this hard lesson first-hand, millions of Americans will once again end their St. Patrick's Day bowing down before the porcelain god. Calling Huey on the great white telephone. Mugging the porcelain tourist. Playing with the edible yo-yo. Giggling to Ralph over the porcelain intercom. Making a pavement pizza. Singing solo in the porcelain amphitheater. And other funny phrases I found online to boost my word count.

What makes it worse is that most people don't have the faintest idea what they're actually celebrating on St. Patrick's Day.

In fact, for a lot of people (Lindsey Lohan), St. Patrick's Day is distinguished from Mardi Gras only by the fact that the beer they're throwing up is green.

The real reason we celebrate is, of course, to commemorate the life and deeds of St. Patrick, who is famous for chasing all of the snakes out of Ireland, presumably by putting on a green plastic hat and throwing up Jell-O shots on them. This feat is all the more amazing when you consider the fact that Ireland never had any snakes to begin with. And that's an actual true, scientific, non-made-up fact. As opposed to this one: George Bush was forged in the fires of Mordor.

Which is a lie because, as Wikipedia points out, he was actually the one doing the forging.

I don't mean to give the impression that I did all of my research for this article on Wikipedia. That couldn't be further from the truth. I also did some research on pukeplanet.com, which is a website consisting entirely of pictures of people barfing. That's sort of bizarre in and of itself, but the truly remarkable part is how the website advertises itself as – and I swear this is true – "the best site for puke pictures on the web."

So if you've been less than satisfied with the puke-picture sites you've been frequenting lately, you know where to go.

Sometimes I think about St. Patrick's Day and all of the barfing and wonder how things got so out of hand. Like, 400 years ago it was a holy day of obligation for Roman Catholics in Ireland. Now it's a day when people go out to bars, drink their body weight in green-tinted domestic drafts and blarney all over each other's shoes. It's like the entire holiday has been secularized, which is a really, really sad thing. I mean, what would Santa say if he were here?

Yeah, sometimes I get down about St. Patrick's Day. But then I think about those tiny little men in the funny suits who are always hiding their gold – What do you call those again? Republicans? – and I smile.

At least next year we won't have one of those in the White House.

Posted by Jeff on 3/01/2007 12:13:00 AM

It's March, which means that everyone is talking about St. Patrick's Day.

Arrogant, smug St. Patrick's Day. "Oh, look at me! I'm St. Patrick's Day! I'm the most important day of the month! I'm the best holiday on the planet! Everyone look at me!"

Well, we've got news for you, St. Patrick's Day. Team Last Call is sick of you strutting around with that pompous attitude, like you totally own the month of March. Not only are you not the only holiday in March – you're not even the only holiday on March 17!

After conducting hours of painstaking research on the Truthnet, Team Last Call discovered that March actually has 31 separate holidays – one for each day. So, St. Patrick's Day, it is with no small amount of pleasure that we present Team Last Call's Guide to Holidays in March That Aren't St. Patrick's Day.

March 1: National Pig Day. This holiday has been an annual tradition since 1972, when Texas art teacher Ellen Stanley organized the first official National Pig Day to honor and give thanks for domesticated pigs and – in a remarkable display of foresight – Hummer owners.

March 2: National Salesperson Day. This holiday, which occurs each year on the first Friday in March, is a day when we pay our respects to the door-to-door salespeople and telemarketers of the world by calling them at home during dinner and blasting an airhorn into the receiver.

March 3: National Anthem Day. This holiday pays tribute to the song that pays tribute to the flag that U.S. news agencies aren't allowed to show draped over caskets. Freedom of Information Day isn't until March 16.

March 4: Hug a GI Day. Not recommended for individuals of Middle Eastern descent who live in Afghanistan, have long beards and are named Osama Bin Laden.

March 5: Multiple Personality Day. We love this holiday. We also hate this holiday.

March 6: National Frozen Food Day. This holiday commemorates the fateful day when a Disneyland chef came to work drunk and accidentally cooked up a platter of Walt-loaf.

March 7: National Crown Roast of Pork Day. This is the day when we wear roasted pork on our heads.

March 8: Be Nasty Day. This is a much-loved holiday during which bored office workers all across America forward each other pictures of Britney Spears getting out of that limo. You know the one I'm talking about.

March 9: Panic Day. This holiday was invented by republican incumbents who have been photographed shaking hands with President Bush.

March 10: Middle Name Pride Day. This holiday has been celebrated yearly since its inception in 1863 by William Hemorrhoid Smith, Jr.

March 11: Worship of Tools Day. This holiday was established to pay tribute to the fine men and women of Fox News.

March 12: Plant a Flower Day. Also known as The Second Gayest Holiday Ever.

March 13: Jewel Day. The day when we celebrate irritating, melodramatic singer-songwriters around the world. Just kidding. It's actually a day when we give thanks for jewels by buying … more jewels. Sponsored by the Jewelers Association of America.

March 14: Learn about Butterflies Day. The Gayest Holiday Ever.

March 15: Dumbstruck Day. Or as George W. Bush likes to call it, "Day."

March 16: Freedom of Information Day. Restrictions include images of flags draped over caskets.

March 17: Submarine Day. We're not sure if this holiday refers to the type of sandwich or the underwater boat. All we care about is that we're really sticking it to St. Patrick's Day.

March 18: Supreme Sacrifice Day. This day recognizes Americans who have made the ultimate sacrifice for the good of others. Restrictions include dead American soldiers, who apparently don't exist.

March 19: Poultry Day. Love a chicken today. Not recommended for residents of Arkansas or West Virginia.

March 20: Extraterrestrial Abductions Day. We're not sure if this is a day to remember your alien abduction or a day to be abducted. Either way, an anal probe is involved.

March 21: Fragrance Day. This is day that you, um, smell stuff.

March 22: National Goof-off Day. The first national holiday to receive unanimous approval in the senate.

March 23: Near Miss Day. Near Miss Day commemorates the day in 1989 when a huge asteroid barely missed hitting the earth. Then scientists discovered it was just Britney Spears' enormous ass – from the future!

March 24: National Chocolate-covered Raisin Day. Eat chocolate-covered raisins.

March 25: Waffle Day. Eat waffles.

March 26: Make Up Your Own Holiday Day. National Go To Work Without Pants Day?

March 27: National "Joe" Day. This holiday gives people who don't like their first names a chance to go by another name for a day. Frankly, my son Lipshitz Royer and I don't see why that would be necessary.

March 28: Something on a Stick Day. This is a day to celebrate sticks and all of the various things they are stuck into, including Popsicles, corndogs and Bill O'Reilly's ass.

March 29: Smoke and Mirrors Day. This holiday was established by the current administration to celebrate our victory in the war on terror.

March 30: I am in Control Day. This holiday was established by Rupert Murdoch to celebrate Rupert Murdoch and the suppression of images of flags draped on caskets by Rupert Murdoch.

March 31: Bunsen Burner Day. This holiday celebrates, uh, Bunsen burners.

We feel that we've done a good thing today. After the way we stuck it to St. Patrick's Day, maybe next time it will think twice about being so supercilious, which is a word we just looked up in our thesaurus. Now if you'll excuse us, we've got to get the kids to soccer practice. Come along, Lipshitz!

Posted by Jeff on 3/01/2006 11:55:00 PM

St. Patrick's Day is just around the corner, that special time of year when we all take a moment out of our schedules to celebrate the conversion of the pagans in fifth-century Ireland. By which I mean throw up green beer in the back of our friend's car.

St. Patrick's Day is celebrated in more countries around the world than any other holiday, which Team Last Call knows is true because we read it on the internet. We also read that Hurricane Katrina was caused by a Russian-made electromagnetic generator that the Japanese mafia used in order to avenge itself for the Hiroshima bomb attack (www.weatherwars.info). Just so you know.

Considering that St. Patrick's Day is the single most popular holiday on planet earth (as we recently learned), it's amazing to think about how little we Americans actually know about the "reason for the season." With every other major holiday, you at least have a vague idea about what you're throwing up about. We know that Thanksgiving, for example, is held to commemorate the day the pilgrims invented cranberry sauce, after which they invited all of the Indians over to their house to feast and trade goods. After which they killed them. Then there's Easter, named after Easter Island, which is where Jesus discovered a rare breed of rabbit that lays plastic eggs filled with M&Ms. And Christmas, which of course is Santa's birthday. And don't forget Election Day, that special time when we Americans celebrate the fact that we live in the most hated country in the world by re-electing the man who made us that way. Hooray!

But the story behind St. Patrick's Day remains a mystery. St. Patrick himself is quite the elusive character. You're about as likely to find a believable account of his life as you are to find someone at a Larry The Cable Guy concert who's still got all of his original teeth. According to the internet (or as Team Last Call likes to call it, the Truthnet), most of what we do know about St. Patrick is highly questionable anyway – including the assumption that he was Irish. He was actually born in England in the year 385. Or in Scotland in 373, or in Wales in 402, depending on which Truthnet site you're reading. One site (www.stpatsmadison.org) also states that St. Patrick invented the monkey wrench and introduced the world to calculus. If we hadn't found it on the Truthnet, we never would have believed it.

Incidentally, while we were conducting our research – by which we mean when our interns were conducting their research – Team Last Call also stumbled across a rather disturbing news report about how space aliens are using e-mail pornography to seduce Earth women, a practice that astrophysicist Dr. Paul Winterhoof says is just the first step in what is actually a massive conspiracy to mate humans and extraterrestrials (www.weeklyworldnews.com). We just sort of felt a responsibility to share that with you. That's just the kind of people Team Last Call is made of. The kind that ends a sentence with a preposition.

While St. Patrick accomplished a great many things during his time in Ireland (or Scotland, or India, depending on which Truthnet site you're reading), he is most celebrated for driving all of the snakes out of Ireland, a feat that would be even more impressive had there ever been any snakes in Ireland to begin with. Not that we're trying to discredit St. Patrick. Team Last Call is as pro-St. Patrick as the next guy. We're just saying that taking credit for driving the snakes out of Ireland is like taking credit for driving all of the three-toed, double-jointed, fire-breathing half-dragon-half-gorillas out of Pennsylvania. Because according to the Truthnet, those never got any farther west than New Jersey.

Some scholars theorize that the "driving the snakes out of Ireland" thing is an allegory that church leaders developed to illustrate the success St. Patrick had in converting pagans into believers. Which is something that's hard to joke about, so we'll just leave it alone. But what we will joke about is how a holiday honoring a religious saint has evolved into a day when people put on green plastic hats, drink themselves into oblivion and wake up in the neighbors' bushes with three dozen strands of Mardi Gras beads around their necks. But let's not drag the Bush twins into this.

Here's an interesting factoid: according to the Truthnet, green is actually not a very popular color in Ireland. In fact, it's considered downright unlucky (www.nationalgeographic.com). Legend has it that children who wear too much green are in danger of being kidnapped by leprechauns, who are tiny little men in tiny little suits who like to prance around under a rainbow, kind of like an Irish version of Ryan Seacrest.

Our final – and, I might add, most shocking – discovery on the Truthnet was that people in Ireland like to drink (alcoholism.about.com). A lot. Which we're thinking has something to do with their belief that tiny little prancing men will kidnap their children if they wear too much green. But we could be wrong. Anyway, as they say in Ireland, Erin go bragh! (Gaelic for "Ireland go bragh!") Have a safe and happy St. Patty's Day!