Annual St. Patrick's Day Speech

Jay’s Annual St. Patrick’s Day Speech

 

A few fun facts to make the holiday even more fun:  An abrev. St. Patrick’s Day History

 

St. Patrick's Day is celebrated on March 17, his religious feast day and the anniversary of his death in the fifth century. The Irish have observed this day as a religious holiday for thousands of years (Irish exaggeration). In Ireland, it’s pretty much a somber affair. That’s why St. Patrick’s Day is really an AMERICAN holiday.

Here’s why:  The first St. Patrick's Day parade took place NOT in Ireland, but in the United States. Irish soldiers serving in the English military marched through New York City on March 17, 1762. Along with their music, the parade helped the soldiers to reconnect with their Irish roots, as well as fellow Irishmen serving in the English army.  Basically, they were thumbing their noses at their English overseers. Showing their independence with Irish flair.

Over the next thirty-five years, Irish patriotism among American immigrants flourished, prompting the rise of so-called "Irish Aid" societies, such as the Friendly Sons of Saint Patrick and the Hibernian Society. Each group would hold annual parades featuring bagpipes (which actually first became popular in the Scottish and British armies) and drums.

Today, St. Patrick's Day is celebrated by people of all backgrounds in the United States, Canada, and Australia. Although North America is home to the largest productions, St. Patrick's Day has been celebrated in other locations far from Ireland, including Japan, Singapore, and Russia.


 

Catching a leprechaun

 

A leprechaun is an Irish fairy, with the name itself derived from "Luchorpan," meaning "little body." Full grown, they are said to stand about two feet tall, three at the most.

NY pub doors

According to legend, they are unfriendly, live alone, and scowl often. They are shoemakers by trade, wearing a cocked hat and a leather apron. A leprechaun may possess a pot of gold, which is sometimes believed to be at the end of a rainbow. Because leprechauns work hard at finding new hiding places for their gold they are just as hard to locate as the gold.  Legend has it that they carry two coins with them. One is magical and replenishes the second one when they give it away. The second one turns to stone or sand as soon as the leprechaun is out of sight.

 

Those trying to capture a leprechaun and his gold are advised to listen for the sound of a shoemaker's hammer. When caught, the leprechaun must reveal the whereabouts of his pot of gold. However, to keep custody of the leprechaun, you must never take your eyes of of him. He will try to trick you into looking away, and if you do ... poof, he vanishes.

And to help you if you're called upon to make a toast, here's a few samples:

 

May the leprechauns be near you, To spread luck along your way. And may all the Irish angels, Smile upon you St. Patrick's Day.

 

May your blessings outnumber the shamrocks that grow, And may trouble avoid you wherever you go.

 

May you live as long as you want, And never want as long as you live.

 

An Irishman is never drunk as long as He can hold onto one blade of grass and not Fall off the face of the earth.

 

Happy St. Patrick's Day

We at The Thurber Brigade have been sending out this speech to friends and posting it on FaceBook for decades and decided to finally share it via the blog. We hope you have gained some insight into this great American holiday and enjoyed the pictures. Now go out and grab a Guinness (we're partial to Smithwick's instead) and celebrate. Don't forget to watch the fight scene in "The Quiet Man." Another great St. Pat's tradition.

 

 

Set Your Soul On Fire

Back in the 80s, AIDS protestors (protesting lack of funding/concern by the government) took to the streets across the country. Police were so afraid they might get the disease—even though the protestors may not have it and ignoring the science that stated you couldn't get it by mere contact—that they wore gloves in case they needed to touch one of the demonstrators.

Obviously, this enraged the protesters even more as it showed how they were treated as less than human. I remember seeing newscasts about these and the image stayed in my subconscious. When I thought about a follow up to my book TAX BREAK, these images came back. My mind played around with it all and finally suggested to me “what if these protestors decided to kick it up a notch?”

So SOULS ON FIRE tells that story. These activists decide to resort to terrorism to make their point. They embrace the Viking belief that it's better to die fighting for your beliefs than whither away in bed. They attack banks to get money to support themselves and attack the police to get revenge.

In a way, it also reflects the mindset of the people in the Warsaw ghetto during WWII. The people knew the Nazis would inevitably kill them, so they might as well fight back to the best of their ability.

 AIDS is a major theme of the book, but a more subtle one, albeit just as important, is PTSD.  I modeled the story a bit like “Soldier's Home” by Ernest Hemingway. An engrossing (and depressing) story about a young man who returns from WWI and is drastically changed from his prewar self.

This doesn't hit you in the face, but you can begin to see it in the character by the flashbacks he experiences. I won't say much more about this as I don't want to spoil it for you (and it's important when you read any book that you discover what the author is saying) but when you read it think about whether anything is odd or if his judgement has changed.

This book also delves more into Austin then the previous book. I'm in love with this city and you get to learn about its politics, environment, well, the nature of the city. Of course, I also had to mention a great musician who graced the city (and one of its great music venues from the day).

A writing point about the book: it's really short. According to one book seller you should be able to read it within three hours. As I wrote it I kept having this weird internal battle that on one hand said go into more detail, but on the other said, well, the kids today have an attention span of five seconds, so keep it short buster. Okay, I admit that even I sometimes skim books these days so I can get to the grist. So it was for me too.

On a personal note, this took me a long time to write.  I began the project in 2008 and slowly worked on completing it over the next 10 years.  I could blame that because a few years before beginning I got hit by a car while biking and my house burned down, but I am not sure those still weighed on my thoughts. 

It might have also stemmed from being depressed about lack of sales for my other books or how difficult it had been to get short stories published (I have quite a few that succeeded).  However, I have a feeling it’s more likely that it’s that I seem to get distracted easily these days.  Oh, is there a football game on right now?  Maybe.

I hope this insight into SOULS ON FIRE intrigued you enough to give it a try.  Think of it as a great distraction you can complete reading on your next long flight.  Or that you believe you’ll be dragged into this action-packed novel because it delves into important social issues. Whatever your reason, I hope you enjoy it and that it does more than entertains you, but also causes you to pause and think.  It sure did that to me as I wrote it.

Ahhh, James Thurber

 A short description of SOULS ON FIRE:

In 1985 AIDS activists slaughter police and terrorize Austin in the new blockbuster mystery SOULS ON FIRE.  Buy it now to discover if a movie-addicted police detective and his former CIA agent and bar-owner friend can stop the violence that engulfs the city.

FaceBook page:

https://www.facebook.com/SoulsOnFire.JayW/

The Brigade Beer Blog

Sooner or later, it had to happen. Anyone who has followed my Twitter or FaceBook posts have noticed that I don't post selfies.  I post pictures of my books on an iPad that is sitting next to a beer.  Yes, I promote my books while simultaneously promoting some of my favorite places to hang out and their beers. 

Those places make their own beer. So, in other words, good beer.  Places like brew pubs or tap rooms (tasting rooms) at breweries.  Places that don't skimp on ingredients and in fact brag about those ingredients. If you ask them about a beer that interests you they not only let you sample it first, they may launch into a long speech about how it got made.

They are places where beer snobs such as myself feel at home.

When I travel, for meals I look for brew pubs so I can not only sample their beer, but experience the good pub grub they offer. I like to vacation where I can enjoy my hiking passion as well as hit beer festivals. So, I've been to the Great American Beer Festival a number of times. I’ve visited my favorite, the Oregon Brewers Festival, so often that I now also go to volunteer (can't drink while doing it, but they give you free tokens to get beer after you’re done).

So it was only a matter of time before I would feel obligated to blog about beer.  As a beer snob, it meant I'd also rant against Mass Produced Beer (Bud, Miller, Coors, et al).

Unlike the beer lovingly brewed at the above-mentioned places, Mass Produced Beer (MPB) has little taste, color, aroma or body. It is often brewed with inferior ingredients, as well as includes “things” that do not belong in beer.

Have you heard about adjuncts?  Adjuncts are ingredients that sound okay, but in effect are shortchanging beer drinkers. They are used to save the brewer money by using cheaper ingredients. For example, Bud uses rice as an adjunct while Miller uses corn.  In other words, instead of using all malt, they'll cut it with the adjunct so you get half the taste and body. It's why if you drink a good beer and then follow with an MPB it suddenly tastes like you are drinking water with battery acid mixed into it. 

My theory about why the MPBs began doing this is that shortly after prohibition ended, the brewers decided they needed to try something to make more money. Since the American public was thirsty for beer after a long drought they didn't notice that they were now missing out on taste.

After the brewers were safely on two feet and making money hand over fist they decided they didn’t need to go back to making a full beer. Instead, they decided to spend a little more on advertising and keep shortchanging beer drinkers.

I’m always noting to friends how the MPB have great TV ads, but lousy beer. They sound good, but taste bad.

German brewers came up with this same scheme centuries ago, but beer drinkers revolted. Urban legend says that some brewers lost their heads over this, but I have a feeling that’s just some beer drinker embellishing the story a bit (after a few beers). Politicians eventually got on board and passed the famous German Purity Law to prevent this catastrophe. The law states that brewers may only use four ingredients: water, barley, hops and yeast. 

Some MPBs also use other ingredients that you won't find in good beer. Strange ingredients like emulsifiers, corn syrup, and who knows what else?  Trying to find out what they add is like pulling teeth. Soon, like most foods in the US, they'll be forced to tell us what's in the beer.

Some MPBs use advertising to trick customers that their ingredients are not evil, I mean, less than beer pure. You have seen it and probably not noticed. Something like admitting one of the ingredients is rice, but downplay that it is used to produce a less tasty product.  They just mention it along with the other ingredients and hope you don’t question its inclusion. Similar to how your wife may mention something about the weather this weekend and under her breath mention that her mother is coming to visit. Go ahead, wrinkle your nose, it really is just as bad.

So if you have fallen for MPB’s ads and think you are getting a great product, then educate your taste buds to real beer.  Spend an extra dollar to purchase a beer with taste, aroma, body and color.  However, if you are a teenager and just want to get drunk behind the barn with your friends, well, go ahead and buy the cheap MPB (illegal in the US by the way) and leave the good stuff for us adults.

We at The Thurber Brigade wanted a much longer blog, one that included talking about different styles, types of hops, etc., but some of the non-beer drinking editors insisted we tame the length. Likewise, we could have mentioned more about adjuncts, emulsifiers, et al, maybe even been balanced and mention why MPBs include them, but hey, if they can spend billions on advertising lousy beer, they can afford to write their own blog defending lesser ingredients. Oops, sorry, got carried away again.

The Chili Parlor Incident

Close Encounter, Part II

In a previous blog,  "Relationship C.V.",  I discussed a few of my less-than-successful relationships.  Partly for entertainment purposes (admit it, you like to hear about other people's failures), but also to point out my knowledge of relationships.  These were relationships that didn't go the distance. This time I want to tell about a "near miss." A situation where I had the intention of starting a relationship, but it just never got off the ground.

This might be a continuation of sorts, maybe a series, as I also previously mentioned an encounter with a woman and how a music video actress reminded me of her. That incident (Close Encounters, Part I) could easily be labeled a "near miss" too because I was a misplaced phone number away from dating her.

When you think about a near miss, you can't really claim it is good or bad. This is because you can't predict the future or tell how the possible relationship would have turned out. You could have gone on and married the woman or just as easily she could have knifed you in the back in a fit of rage over one of your bad habits. It's fun to think about the possibilities though.


Years ago my roommate and I (I'm a frugal guy, so had a roommate to save money back then) had a habit of hitting the Texas Chili Parlor.  A great dive/bar famous for it's XXX chili. Yes, I would occasionally try the triple, it tasted great, but you obviously pay a taste bud price for the heat.

However, we didn't go for the chili, we went for the "Magnums." These were just rum, Coke and lime (yeah a Cuba Libra), but they used a great name to draw us in to imbibe. Or was it my roommate who made up that name?

So on one excursion a new waitress, Nancy, caught my eye. She was a petite blonde with incredible eyes, but more importantly, she not only put up with us two obnoxious guys, she seemed to like us.

When I say obnoxious, I don't mean the type who makes snide remarks about the wait staff or gets in fights with other customers. No, we were the types who spoke too loud, thought we were clever (although the comments were more weird then witty), and who tended to not leave. That's right, we stayed until they put the chairs on the tables and mopped around our feet. Sometimes the staff would say something, but usually, they just tried to drop coy hints (the chairs, mopping, etc.). After all, we were really good customers.

So Nancy put up with the goofy banter and also would join in sometimes. Slowly, but surely, I think my attempts to get her to pay attention to me beyond customer status began to pay off. I could tell because she began to tell us something about her personal life, even if we didn't ask.

Okay, you are probably asking "why didn't you pounce right away" after she began to make more obvious signs. However, first off remember the blog about signs.  Women can sometimes give really misleading signs (not to be confused with the blog about women misleading men).

Second, most of us realize that waitresses are trained in "professional courtesy." This tactic utilizes various techniques from the easy (smiling politely) to the ultimate (the "I'm a good buddy" technique).  So when I attempt to make first contact with a waitress, I'm a little more cautious about jumping in with my heart. Sure, maybe I'm a little shy too.

Finally, after numerous weeks of going to the Texas Chili Parlor, drinking way too many Magnums and gently prodding her to garner interest, I decided to dive in full steam. I'd ask her for her phone number.  On our third drink I told my roommate about my plan. As I rushed to finish my drink so we could call her over, I could see him thinking this over deeply. Oh sure, I should have seen the warning signs. For either of us, drinking a lot and thinking deeply was not a good combination.

I waved at Nancy and got her to come over.

"I wonder if you'd give me your phone number so I could call you sometime and maybe we could go try out some other place sometime or something sometime, you know." (What? you thought I had a smooth line? You haven't been reading these blogs).

Nancy smiled broadly, but before she could even begin to tell me her number—and I'm absolutely sure she was about to—my roommate blurted out: "No, what would be better is for you to give her your number and then she can call you when she wants."

Taken aback, she blinked unknowingly, not sure what to make of this. I on the other hand, having consumed several strong drinks (if they liked you, your drinks were stronger than normal) thought that maybe my roommate had a great solution. Maybe he had figured out the right scenario for this situation and wanted me to take advantage of it. I thought this even though he hadn't had a girlfriend in years and was not known as a person to seek out dates. He was basically the perpetual "Wing Man." So of course, I gave her my number. We had a few more drinks then stumbled home.

You know the outcome of this already though. I've mentioned this countless times with different links leading to verification that women do not make first contact. After a few weeks we went back to the Texas Chili Parlor and learned she had moved on. No one knew where she moved to, although they were sure she still lived in town. It didn't matter though as even if I had know where she worked now, it would be like starting over.

 

Possible outcomes from a near miss relationship

So once again, another near miss that could have lead to something really great. Oh, I could blame my roommate (notice how I have yet to say his name) but as I mentioned, since we don't know the future he might have also saved me from a grisly death.  Therefore I just look at this as another adventure on the relationship battlefront of the War Between Men and Women.

(This has nothing to do with the blog; it's just included to inflame those radical feminists who are stalking me and hate it when I include pictures of provocative females)

Put Down, But Not Out

We all know that it's up to the male to continue the species, as women never want to make the first move. Well, unless the guy is rich or a rock star (okay, I do know of a few occasions when a woman asked a guy out—but she knew him from work. A female would never go up to a stranger like men would). However, it is always challenging for the male because all sorts of roadblocks are put in their way.

These range from young boys trying to navigate past protective fathers to men trying to find Miss Right in a singles bar where the usual male/female ratio is 10-1. One of the most nefarious roadblocks though is when we encounter or hear about put-downs flung at us by females.

Most men have encountered these for so long we just drive on like it's a speed bump, but for the less experienced, these can seem like major walls to the psyche.  Below are a few examples of put-downs that women toss out like so many hand grenades.

"Man up." Used when a male does something that might be considered feminine, such as crying or complaining about something a female thinks the male should not complain about. Always confusing for the male because the female is always asking him to be more expressive, or constantly chiding him for his lack of emotions.

“Oh, just put on a dress.”  Similar to Man Up, but used as a very pointed commentary about a male not acting male enough. Oddity because women hate it when men say things like "you throw like a girl" etc.

“He's gay.” Used often when a male doesn't show interest in a female. Mostly used by a female to other females, but invariably it comes back to haunt the male through back room whispers and pass along emails. This is one of the reasons straight males resist wearing pastels. Of course let me drop a line from Seinfeld: "not that's there anything wrong with that." However, this is a blog about the differences between men and women and for some reason, women believe this is a coherent put-down.

“I can't believe you are not married.” A satirical jab after a male says something a female doesn't like. Oddly meant as a put down, although the female may not be married herself. Has completely different meaning if said by your aunt. The only appropriate way for a male to respond is straight forward, then roll the eyes when told she was being sarcastic.

“Grow up.” Often used when a male does some physical act the female finds offensive, such as shoving a friend, farting to make a statement. In a way this is a odd put down as most of the time females will say they are attracted to a male's youthful attitude or exuberance.

“My ex-boyfriend did it like this/different...” Often used to belittle a male when he does something the female doesn't like.  She can't just come out and say she doesn't like the behavior because it probably isn't something society would dislike, it's just not to her liking.

“I can't believe you own that.” Usually more specific, like, a car, stereo. Usually in relation to the male saving money by buying something the female believes is cheap, used, old, worn, etc. For example, I remember my brother telling me about a women he dated—from his church no less—who said she was shocked he drove a 10-year old car (he was a young attorney). He wisely didn't want to be in debt, but she was only interested in image. Very Christian-like.

“Are you going to wear/do that again?” Although it might seem like these are two distinct statements, they are actually the same in their scope and use. It's a put-down of something the male believes is acceptable, but the female finds distasteful. For example, if the guy is planning to wear his favorite Hawaiian shirt to a party or if he says he's going to shoot some hoops with his rowdy (and typically single) best friend. Two distinct acts but the female will respond in the same manner.

There are more and maybe we'll include them in the future, but as you see, there are quite a few bricks thrown in the male's windshield as he navigates the relationship highway. Women typically just say the guy needs to "man up" as these are just little harmless comments. However, since they are so fearful of rejection or get tearful at the slightest snide remark by the male it's surprising they don't see the irony.

The best thing for the male to do is just keep driving down that road and put these slights in the rear view. After all, the only alternative is to drive into the ditch and just give up. Or get a beer.

(Get a beer with a female, that is)

(images courtesy of http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/)

Close Encounters, Part I

Hawkeye’s was a bar on Austin's Sixth Street in the early days of that avenue's transformation into the city's premiere entertainment location. Typical for Sixth Street at that time, it had the laid-back, friendly atmosphere as opposed to today's loud and obnoxious. 

Not really that much different than the other bars downtown, but my friends and I liked it best because of the beer specials and, most importantly, its free happy hour snacks. Typically, this consisted of finger sandwiches, chicken nuggets, etc. Nothing fancy, but for us poor college students a life saver as we could go in and order one beer, then stuff ourselves for the next hour.

It was often my only real food for the week (I was a really poor college student).

However, the main reason I always wanted to go there was because of the wait staff.  I was particularly taken with Susan. A thin brunet who always reminded me of the girl in the Semisonic music video "Closing Time." Her eyes were mesmerizing, her smile tantalizing. I was smitten.

 So I would drag my roommates down to Hawkeyes whenever I had a few dollars and they were desperate for food.

In those days, I was pretty good at picking up females. It probably was my sky blue eyes and sandy blond locks (which I really miss).

 

(miss that hair)

 However, for some reason I could never get up much nerve to talk to Susan in anything more than brief comments. My friends Ace and Lance thought it was funny, but at least they always tried to help me. Often deflecting conversation with Susan my way. But I never got much more than little tidbits about her life.

Finally I got the nerve up to ask for her phone number. I think she had been particularly nice to me that night, so it probably got my courage up to take a chance. With a cute smile, she wrote it out on one of the bar's napkins (this was before cell phones). After finishing my beer, I told her I'd call her the next day and with my prize in hand my friends and I headed home.

Unfortunately, when we got home my brother was there, having made an unannounced visit from Houston. He wanted to go out and since he had money, how could I resist? So out we went again (not to Hawkeye's) and promptly got blitzed.  When we got back to the apartment much later that night, I did the polite thing and let him sleep in my bed. He did after all pay for the beer. I slept on the floor. In my clothes. I have a feeling it was not the plan, as much as it was just the easiest thing to do.

So when I woke up the next morning, a little taken aback that I was on the floor and in my clothes (it was a lot of beer), as soon as I had recovered enough senses, I checked my back pocket for the napkin.

It was gone!

I panicked. I checked again, then checked all my pockets. I crawled around the floor looking under everything. I scoured the entire apartment, even all the wastebaskets. Completely gone.

I wanted to head down to Hawkeyes immediately, but my friends convinced me that it would be better to wait two days (still don't know how they came up with the time) otherwise I'd be seen as desperate. Which I was of course, but I sure didn't want to appear that way. I admit, it's a macho thing.

So two days later we headed to Hawkeyes. Susan was gone. I knew it was her night to work (one of the few things I learned from her) so I was a little taken aback. I asked our new waitress if she knew what happened to Susan, and was shocked to learn she quit. Luckily, this waitress was a friend of hers and so let us know where she was now working.

I won't go into the bloody details, but rest assured I tracked her down at the new place, could tell she was more than a little pissed I hadn't called as promised, but the big point was that I didn't have the nerve to ask for her number again.

To this day I still think back to this incident. As a writer with a fervent imagination I dream out all sorts of scenarios, usually with us heading off into the sunset, her laughing off my little escapade and making plans for our future family. In some ways,  I'm a little glad that didn't happen, but the thoughts are still there.

So there are two main conclusions to this tale: one is to always write down important numbers in two places at least (or right away enter it in your fancy cell phone) and two, for females to not be afraid to make first contact. If you like a guy, and he hasn't called—call him!

 Of course, I know the latter will never happen, so we'll discuss it in the future in another communique from the ThurberBrigade here at the front in the ongoing War Between Men and Women. 

Why men go to bars

(Images courtesy http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/)