The Shark Guys

To drinkers, St. Patrick's Day is an occasion that holds an almost religious significance. In fact, some drunk in a bar many St. Patrick's Days ago once told us that the occasion was rooted in some sort of Catholic tradition. He described a highly improbable scenario involving snakes having infested Ireland, and a saint named Patrick coming along to drive them out like some sort of pest control superman. Being that this entire business reminded us of an awful Jon Voight movie out of theaters by then that we had hoped to put out of our minds as well, we proceeded to move to the other end of the bar. Guinness brewery has been pushing the idea of making St. Paddy's an official holiday, and we are all for it, but even if they're not successful, to us St. Patrick's Day still has a special status -- we call it "Drunk's Easter" -- and it would be a disservice to our readers and a slight on the Irish ancestry of one of the authors if we did not pay tribute to this day by stopping on our way to the bar to offer some suggestions on how you can put the "Irish" back into your St. Patrick's Day celebration:

1) Spike your Morning Starbucks’: When ordering your ultra-venti sized iced raspberry frozen frappucino chai cum latte on the morning of St. Patrick’s Day be sure to dump half of it on the floor and top up the remainder with delicious Bailey’s Irish Crème – the perfect coffee companion (Irish Whiskey is also acceptable, although it might be a bit hard on the stomach first thing in the morning -- remember you only want to approach stomach-pump drunk by night's end, so you need to pace yourself). While on most days this would raise the ire of more than one Starbucks “partner”, on St. Patrick’s Day it shows them that you know how to enjoy yourself. Another option, recently suggested by LAist, is doing the same to liven up a bit of the tasteless spearmint-flavored concoction known at McDonald's as "The Shamrock Shake".

2) Speak in a think Irish brogue: The Irish accent is undoubtedly the world’s easiest to mimic and the secret to perfecting it lies simply in drinking more; the drunker you are, the better your accent will be -- that's just a fact. Go throughout your entire day as if you were Brad Pitt using method-acting techniques in preparation for his role as an IRA terrorist in "The Devil's Own". Adopting an Irish accent is all the more effective if you choose an offensive Irish stereotype, such as Paddy the no-nonsense red-headed cop, loony Father Feeny who flashes the congregation at holy communion or Sister Mary the maniacal nun. The movie "Boondock Saints" was hugely popular both among lovers of Irish immigrant tales and also those in favor of Bernie Goetz-style justice. Here is an outtake of an actor in that one perfecting his Irish accent. Can you tell the difference from the real thing?

3) Deny that Ireland has modernized: Refuse to believe that Ireland is now one of the world's leaders in IT and software and that companies as important as Apple would even think about putting their European headquarters in the country. Ignore any mention of Ireland leading the world in quality of life and of Dublin being a prohibitively expensive place to live, to you it's all potatoes and four leaf clovers over there and that’s how it should be on St. Patty’s Day.

4) Learn Gaelic: What's taking the excruciating time and effort needed to learn a near-dead language between friends? You'll be able to not only finally understand why someone named Shawn would spell it "Sean", and why "Sinn Fein" is not a misspelling that people are too afraid to correct, but you'll also wow Irish and Scottish folks who had this language crammed down their throats in school. Since you probably won't have time to learn the entire language today, a few handy phrases will do, such as learning how to order a beer etc, which can be found here.

5) Don’t just stop at green beer: On St. Patrick’s Day, not only should your beer be dyed green, but so should your infant’s milk, your pets, your elderly relations and your shrubbery (any exotic species you may have that is not already green by nature).

6) Tell ridiculous lies about how much worse you had it in the ‘old country’: Even if you're not that old and do not have a drop of Irish blood in your veins, spend the day clipping your younger relations behind the ear and reminding them of the various struggles you and yours had to go through – eating the family pets, having to shoe wild stallions and boil rocks for soup etc – in the old country so that they could enjoy such shameless luxury now.

7) Pretend you enjoy Irish cuisine: Slap a smile on your face as you labor through a bowl of hearty Irish stew. You may not fully digest it until April Fool’s Day, but today is St. Patrick’s Day and this is the greatest cuisine in the world.

8) Sing something maudlin and depressing at a karaoke joint: A proprietor of a New York bar recently banned the singing of "Danny Boy" at his establishment, saying it was too depressing and wasn't even Irish to begin with (someone in the story linked here referred to it as "The Irish 'Freebird'"). Banning a depressing song is in itself an act that flies in the face of Irish tradition, because most good Irish traditional music consists of either jigs or downright jump-off-a-bridge-after-the-last-verse bummer songs. Danny Boy is the most popular of those and if you can find a karaoke spot that hasn't banned this song or that only permits it once a night, then may we suggest that you let it rip. Barring that, there are countless mournful tunes that you can favor the crowd with after an excess of Guinness. We'll leave you on that note, with the best, Tommy Makem and the Clancy Brothers showing why the Irish do the mournful ballad better than 'em all:

Now go get drunk!

Labels: Guinness, holidays, lists, tips

This, as you may have guessed, is an important time of year for us Shark Guys, as we enter the Christmas drinking season and prepare ourselves for yet more tales of drunken Santas, holiday office party chicanery (For our Holiday Office Party Tips click here), and the related reasons why it is best not to include mistletoe at a party where lower-level managers are known for their "Russian hands and Roman fingers" after too many dips into the spiked punch. (For a fuller treatment on this very theme we recommend that you check out the “Festive Cheers: Hooch on the Holidays” chapter of our “The Man Who Scared a Shark to Death: and other true tales of drunken debauchery").

What makes the holidays memorable – aside from family tensions reaching the breaking point and the prospect of imminent financial ruin in the New Year – is, of course, booze, and brewers around the world have smiles on their faces at this time of year that have little to do with stirring religious convictions or sentimental remembrances of gassy mall Santas passing out candy canes and charging 10 bucks a pop for photos. The steady flow of brewer’s booze into pubs is one of those systems that we take for granted, but it is crucial to properly enjoying the holidays and meeting its stressors with rosy cheeks and a good disposition.

Recently, a thief in Ireland stole a record haul of booze from the Guinness brewery, thus throwing this delicate and vital link between brewer and boozehound into jeopardy. According to The Irish Times, the thief drove a truck into the Guinness Brewery, hitched it up to a trailer with 450 kegs of beer in tow, and drove off. In addition to 180 kegs of the black gold, the thief also made off with 180 kegs of Budweiser, and 90 kegs of Carlsberg.

It may be argued that the thief did the drinkers of Dublin a favor by limiting the flow of Budweiser into the city, but in the case of the black gold or “a sandwich in a glass”, as it has been known to The Shark Guys during particularly festive times, the theft was just a cruel, Grinch-like blow to the city.

The thief remains at large, and no doubt living large with all that ill-gotten hooch – 40,500 pints or 64,000 euros worth (the math here was easy as we too measure our money out this way) – at hand.

Labels: Guinness, holidays, theft