St. Patrick Can Kiss My Shamrock

Warning: The entry below contains copious amounts of mild hatred towards a certain person. If you read this and realize it is YOU, think hard over what I've said, because you KNOW I'm right and you're one screwed up person.

Random Notes Before We Start in on the Hate:

GG and SB Awards: they’re on their way to publication. We’ve been compiling this shit for months. Trust me, it’ll be the event of the season. Watch your TV guide for showing times in your area.**
**For those of you who are somewhat dense, we will not actually be appearing on TV.

Jackie on Holiday! Jackie’s gunna be on haitus for the next two weeks, getting sunshine and all that good vitamin D crap. When she returns, we’ll be expecting a full Gun-Down of Mexico and its people. We will be saving the GG & SB broadcasts until she has returned, and probably delay them until spring break is over, because Em’s plans as of yet are not very firmly in place and she could wind up on the other side of the continent for all she knows. (Em: I am really, really beginning to get weirded out by referring to myself in the 3rd person here.) Anyhow, she will be missed and her return shall be heralded by Em standing in the airport with a gigantic bunch of balloons, a clown with a ‘Welcome Home!’ sign, a brass marching band, and an obscenely huge bouquet. (Em: *snerk* Yeah, no. I am SO broke…)

On a similar note…Em has a job interview tomorrow! *Fingers crossed!* If I get the job it means all my internet access will be restricted to weekends, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. I’d rather have limited internet than no job. And it’s a sweet job in my opinion.
And on to the Main Attraction:

St. Patrick’s Day. The Day of St. Patrick. Saint Patrick’s Feast Day.

If by ‘feasting’ you mean ‘drinking and lots and lots of green,’ then I can agree whole-heartedly. Now, I don’t have a particular hatred for the Irish. In fact, I kinda have a soft spot in my heart for them. They try so hard at everything, and you have to give them props for being so consistent in their good-natured (sometimes not so good-natured) hatred of the British. But I’ll get to the general populous in a minute. Now, my beef with the Irish goes back. Waaaaay back. Say, about what is it now…*counts* It’d be about 6 years, I suppose. I met this girl. This Irish girl. This scary, dangerous, Irish girl. She and I were friends for a while, (and sort of still are on a speaking-acquaintance.) We were too much alike I suppose, to get along well. I can be fairly stubborn, but she's plain pigheaded. She is deceitful and mean. I'm being honest here. And I'm not hiding. I'm even being nice by not publishing her real name anywhere. Although she might somehow find this and realize it's her. But I don't believe that she could honestly deny any of the accusations which are to follow here. She was a stubborn, hard-headed, cocky, arrogant little bastard. (Sounds like I am describing a guy, yes, and this chick is fairly butch and has been known to make out with girls when drunk, but that is not the point and she has a boyfriend with really long hair now.) It’s been a love-hate relationship. Mostly mild, annoyed hate on my part for the past few years. She used to be a really good student, a ‘good girl,’ if you will, but not to the point where she’s goody-goody. She was just ‘good’ enough that it made it really awkward when she started chronically lying to her parents and trying to cover up her weekend (sometimes week-day) drinking binges in which the aforementioned girl-on-girl action would occur, insisting that she didn’t know what she was doing. I’m not aware of the status of her grades exactly, but it’s painfully obvious that she has gone form being a preppy poser (oh God don’t get me started on her being a poser.) Except before she began the smoochiness she’d call around the room with a rousing "Hey everyone! Look at me! Look at what I and ______ are doing! Tee Hee! We’re so avante garde it hurts!" Her poser-ness began when she began drinking designer coffee.

Now there’s nothing wrong with coffee, designer or otherwise. Unless you’re drinking it for the express purpose of being noticed to be drinking designer coffee, projecting the image of a cool urban socialite with money burning holes in her cute preppy pockets. I seriously doubt that she even likes coffee beyond her newly formed habit now as a result of forcing herself to give in to peer pressure and buying the percolated Hell-swill for 5 bucks a pop. Take up tabs of acid. Please.

Now, as I’ve said before, this is a small town. My mother was stopped at a red light one day in the ‘downtown’ area. (Note that downtown is about a five minute walk from uptown.) She glanced over casually to see our wee lassie sitting in front of a posh bakery with a foreign-style name and European architecture. Wrought iron and all that rustic chic shit. For fare to offer they had posh European baked goods and designer coffee. Our girl was seated in a street-side table, with a grande cup of designer coffee in front of her. My mother watched in amusement as she began to arrange herself. I swear. She settled herself for a good long while, (the red lights take forever in my town so my mom wasn’t holding up traffic or anything to observe this,) put on her expensive sunglasses, leaned back in her chair ever-so-coolly and just-so, and balanced some post-post-modern book on her knee. (Which, by the way, probably bored her to tears. This girl thinks herself a genius and can’t even bring herself to acknowledge other’s brilliancy. Am I bitter? Probably.) This girl once said to me, about one of the most brilliant young writers I know, "Y’know, she’s a really sweet girl, but I’ve never heard her say anything worth listening to."

Em: *recoils* Oh no she did NOT just say that. If *that* girl is not worth listening to, I need to take a vow of silence, like, right now.

She also remarked, quite bitchily, something about Jackie along the lines of "That girl has an answer for everything." Yeah. Because Jackie is GENIUS and knows EVERYTHING you WISH you DID, you Guinness-swilling eejit. This Irish girl also believes herself to be mucho artistic, the be-all-and-end-all of artistic photography. She went to Quebec for 2 months (or was it 4, I can’t remember, all I know is she was GONE,) and came back full of airs as ever. She likes to think she’s French and speaks French around predominantly English-speakers to prove some point that no one else is aware of. She took pictures of empty coffee cups, some acne-boy’s face close up, someone’s grandma, half a dog, French street signs and brick walls, arranging all of them in black and white in an artistic portfolio, which she made a .pps (PowerPoint presentation) out of them all and showed it along with some angsty alternative music. I nearly peed myself trying not to laugh and/or cry.

Anyhow, my mother nearly pissed herself laughing at this because it was so blatantly obvious this girl is on Poser-Crack. I’ve known this for years. Actually, after reviewing all that, not to mention the myriad bitchy comments and crap she’s put myself and others through over the years, I realized I don’t really like her at all. She’s two-faced, dishonest hop-head, and I wouldn’t be sorry to never see her again. She’s horrendously Liberal/Green/Hippie (not that individually they’re bad things, but all together she’s beginning to sully whatever good there was left in being a hippie by making being a hippie chic and poser-ing it all over again, but this time with a different sub culture. I just got over her punk rock phase, please, make it STOP! She’s into memorizing songs and names of bands no one knows about (reads: no one CARES about,) who are playing a gig downtown somewhere in a skeezy bar. And this ‘up and coming obscure band who’s coolness is inversely proportional to how well they are known’? It’s really her acne-prone boyfriend’s garage alternative rock band, singing something he wrote the lyrics to with minor homosexual undertones and blatant heterosexual ovetones.

Boyfriend on Lead Guitar (only knows 3 chords) and Vocals: "You left, I said, that’s fine! I’m in love with my angst and this heart of mine…is unbreakable…unless my band breaks up. Because the boys mean more to me than you ever cooooould, because doncha know it’s all about the music, it’s not about you, it’s not about me, it’s not about uuuuuuuus, it’s about the Baaaaaaand! Go ahead and leave, I never loved you except when we fucked at that party…*and so on*"

This is a Good Alternative Song because: it speaks to teens on a deeply personal level and addresses their issues while bantering about the metaphysical aspects of the community of The Band rather than the individual (did I mention this girl is a Communist?) as well as a liberal use of heartbreak/teen-romances-ending-badly imagery, along with the word ‘fuck.’

This girl has handed me enough flyers for various causes for me to provide a homeless person with shoes for the year. Her goal in life (besides somehow getting into active politics,) is to come back to my high school on a few years, take the two certain teachers, and just get stoned with them. (Names withheld to protect the teachers.) "Think of how much we could learn," were her basic words. Well yeah. And think: how much of that ‘learning’ would you be able to retain?

Yeah. I thought so. NONE.

My experience in the realm of drug use is limited, but after frequently observing close friends taking tests and doing other cognitively challenging things while under the influence of the so-called ‘wisdom weed,’ I’d have to say that my confidence in your confidence is lower than the municipal reservoir during a drought.

So back to the Irishness and the base of all my hatred. As you can tell, this girl has already got a lot counting against her at this point. Then she compounds the problem by pretending she’s Irish. I mean, hereditarily, she is Irish, by both parents, I believe. However, she is not an Irish citizen. She has never been anywhere near Ireland, from what I know. And yet she is Irish to the core. She took the dancing lessons, (the ones where they cane the little girl’s arms if they dare try and move them while they dance like Michael Flatley’s bitches.) She did a project on it, poster board and all. She begins to swell, ever so slightly, around St. Patrick’s Day, and you can almost see the nationalistic pride bulging out slightly from her otherwise lanky frame. (I won’t get in to gunning down her physical attributes because she can’t help it. None of us can.) And if anyone dares malign the Irish in any way, she shall fly to the rescue and defend the honour of her people. It’s exhausting. She’s like the one-woman IR fuckin’ A.

Now when people make fun of the Dutch, I usually let it slide, because I’m good-humoured about everything and I know that my ancestral people do have various humourous follies and foibles. The only time I get pissed is when people don’t even make the effort to check their sources and say something completely off-base or when they quote Goldmember for the 80, 000th time and wonder why I’m not amused. Even then, I don’t get pissed or violent. I quietly correct them, or, if the situation merits it, I get a little lippy and give ‘em a set down. When Jackie does it, I just dish it out about the Russians, and it’s fun aggression all around. If anyone has MORE reason to defend her people, I do. Because I am a citizen of the Dutch Realm. Legally. I’ve never been to Holland, but I’d like to go at some point, but I don’t let my citizenship, or even my ancestry give me a reason to get in people’s faces for expressing a valid opinion on the nature of a certain culture. Here’s a sample conversation with our Girl of Focus (we’ll call her Carlie.)

Em: Hey, you know what I’ve noticed? The Irish drink a lot of Guinness and tend to wear green on the 17th.
Carlie: *twitches* THAT’S BECAUSE THE BRITISH AND EVERYONE ELSE REPRESSED US AND DENIED US OUR RIGHTS AS A PEOPLE! THE GREEN SYMBOLISES OUR STRUGGLE AS A PEOPLE AND WE HAVE PREVAILED AND THAT’S WHY WE’RE THE GREATEST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD BITCH! DON’T EVER INSULT ME THAT HARSHLY AGAIN! I WILL NOW GO SULK IN A CORNER UNTIL SOMEONE APOLOGIZES AND ADMITS THAT I AM RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING!

Now let’s try that, but with a little thing called Role Reversal.

Carlie: The Dutch have a morally deficient society, with liberal drug and prostitution policies.
Em: It’s true about the policies, but mind you, they’re in place for the protection of the people. Crime in Holland is a smaller problem because the law works with the prostitutes and drug users to keep it safe and clean. And anyhow, I thought YOU were pro-Liberal.
Carlie: ONLY BECAUSE THE BRITISH REPRESSED US! "I’M FROM HOLLAND, IZN’T DAT VEERD?" *inane laugh*
Em: Yeah whatever. *shrugs and goes to find something more interesting to do*
Carlie: What? Can’t you take a joke? ARE YOU A REPRESSED BRIT OR SOMETHING?

GAH!

This is why I am wary of the Irish. I like the jolly, ruddy-cheeked Irishmen who offer you a pint and tell you dirty jokes while you watch a cricket match. I don’t prefer having the bloody history of the Irish rebels shoved down my throat in the manner of scary TV evangelists, except with nationalistic idealism rather than Jesus. I like Jesus more than I like the Irish. It’s a no-brainer.
Now back to St. Patrick’s Day. I’m not averse to it, in general. Sure, the parade is pointless and obnoxious…(you don’t see any other minority getting an international holiday and parade to celebrate their minor saints/deity figures.) but I actually kind of like Guinness (one of the only alcoholic drinks I can consume in comparatively large amounts without feeling ill.) My father has a rather humourous Guinness t-shirt which reads "1 St. Patrick’s Day, 364 Practice Days—GUINNESS" and I giggle every time I see it. In fact, I believe I’ll dig it out and wear it on Thursday. It’s even funnier as I don’t tend to drink much. Anyhow, and I have a green hat I can wear. Green is actually my favourite colour. But if I chose NOT to wear green (say I’m allergic to the green dye in food, beer, and clothing,) why the hell should anyone get to pinch me? If people pinch me without justification, I PUNCH them with justification.

Some Old Irish Bat: Ah! Lookit who’s not wearin’ the shamrock green o’ the St. Patty’s Day! Watch out, or you’ll get a wee pinch! *goes to pinch Em*
Em: NOT A SNOWBALL’S CHANCE IN HELL, BITCH! *sends old bat flying into oncoming traffic* Look who’s not wearing her MANNERS-HAT today!

Keep that in mind. Pinch = Punch. The only difference between a pinch and a punch is the I and the U and how they interact. YOU pinch, I punch! Remember that.

Annoying, Hateful Poser Irish Girls Who Give Their People a Bad Rep, Over-Zealous Pinchers, and Bad Alternative Bands Who Write Their Own Lyrics and Can’t Be Bothered to Learn How to Play an Instrument----------------------------------> GUNNED DOWN!