… Or Evacuation Day, as we sometimes pretend to call it around here. The South Boston parade went off yesterday, without incident, and also without participation from new Mayor Marty Walsh, despite hopes earlier this month that a truce could be negotiated between “parade organizers from the Allied War Veterans Council and the statewide gay-rights organization MassEquality, which sought to end a two-decade ban on groups espousing progay messages”. But “stalwart” bigot Wacko Hurley is 83, and looks every day of it, and even his neighborhood has moved on without him:
The crowd was already up on its feet, clapping and cheering when Senator Linda Dorcena Forry took the stage, belting, “If you’re Irish, this is the place for you.”
But, aware that some longtime viewers of the St. Patrick’s Day breakfast in South Boston might be shocked to see a Haitian-American woman hosting the 70-year-old political roast, she offered a few reassuring words.
“For those of you watching at home, do not adjust your television set,” Dorcena Forry said, as the audience roared with laughter. “There is nothing wrong with the picture on your TV. That is right, everyone. That’s right. I’m a woman!”
Much of the annual breakfast remained familiar — down to the long litany of cringe-inducing jokes by elected officials. But this was also a very different event, infused with fresh energy and interest as Dorcena Forry made her debut in what has been widely seen as a sign of Boston’s evolution from a parochial town of old ethnic allegiances to a multiracial city of new faces and shifting centers of power…
Dorcena Forry was born and has spent her life in Boston; she’s married to an Irish-American. There’s still plenty of ‘ethnic allegiances’, just not the ones Wacko Hurley remembers. One way or another, the parade moves on…
Apart from celebrating new sociopolitical groups’ ascension into political power (or recovering from having done so), what’s on the agenda for the start of another week?
OzarkHillbilly
Some years ago, some friends of mine got banned from the STL St Patrick’s Day parade. I don’t know why. For some reason or other the rather conservative city fathers objected to a couple dozen fat hairy middle aged men dressed up as Girl Scouts and passing out cookies.
So they did what all true reprobates in the midst of middle-aged crises do and the next year they filed for a parade permit and held The Alternative St Paddy’s Day Parade in Soulard. And got it. And so on the Sunday before the big day (the big day being 3/17) every degenerate in the Bi-State area got dressed up in their finest Sunday-Go-To Meeting perversions and let our “freak flags fly”.
I got the Scurrilous Monks together and we built a Sister Winkie shrine. We did a blessing of the parade, carried the shrine, did our chants (“OhhhReeeeeOhhh”) passed out sacred wafers (Oreos), got drunk as skunks and basically had an all around disgusting good time.
I remember stumbling about at 2 AM in search of my truck. People would see my shrouded form carrying the Staff of Something or Other, and if they had missed the parade they would cross the street and pass on the other side. If they saw the parade, they would scream, “SISTER WINKIE!!!!!” and start chanting.
Good times.
raven
Check out Phil Martelli’s 4 year old grandson coaching for St Joe’s!
JPL
@raven: That was so cute!
Happy St. Patrick’s Day or for those who already celebrated, take an aspirin and go back to bed.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: I want to see him argue with the refs.
NotMax
Sure and begorrah.
It’s green! #1 – #2
(All right, all right, Scotty isn’t Irish. A mere technicality on March 17.)
Ash Can
@OzarkHillbilly: That is a great story.
David Fud
@OzarkHillbilly: Do I need to have a mid-life crisis so I can join? Sounds like a hoot.
OzarkHillbilly
@Ash Can: It was a great time. They only did it for a couple years. A parade is a LOT of work. Plus there is the big parade downtown, and another parade in Dogtown on the 17th. Between all that and the fact that the Soulard Mardi Gras parade was always held a few weeks before it, there were diminishing returns.
Skerry
Another! snow day in MD.
OzarkHillbilly
@David Fud: Mid life crises are optional, but weirdness is a requirement.
Schlemizel
I use to work with a guy who seemed to have to let you know he was Irish every time he could find an excuse. Another guy in my dept was a very large black man named “Donnelly”. The first SPD Mr. Donnelly worked with us he wore a green derby with a shamrock on it. All day long the ‘irish’ guy muttered under his breath about “who did he think he was? He was NOT Irish!” It pissed me off so much I went out and bought an orange shirt that I made a point of wearing at SPD – he didn’t get the joke.
PurpleGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: Great story. (I’ve helped put on Star Trek conventions — I understand about the work involved.)
In NYC, Mayor deBlasio and other City officials are not walking in the parade today.
I will be staying in Queens, continuing a tradition started many years ago of staying away from Mid-town Manhattan on St. Patrick’s Day. Even when a worked a block or so away from the parade route, I went in the opposite direction for lunch or stayed in the office.
@NotMax: Trek had some great moments and memorable lines. Thanks.
gene108
Watching CSPAN’s Washington Journal, a lady called in saying Obama should not have allowed this to happen and he’s weak. When asked what she would do, she said she would retaliate militarily, but not boots on the ground, just missiles.
She sounded old enough to remember the Cold War, when Russia had 10,000 nukes pointed our way, but somehow felt dropping a few bombs wouldn’t come back to hurt us in the least.
I do wonder what runs through the heads of some of folks in this country.
On the other hand, part of me appreciates the simplicity of the philosophy of a missile here and a missile there solves every problem.
Schlemizel
@OzarkHillbilly:
Sounds like a good time. OTOH, it leads to a famous ritual for 3/18, ‘The Pukin ‘O the Green’
SiubhanDuinne
For your St. Patrick’s Day listening pleasure.
Ash Can
@Schlemizel: I used to tease my Irish coworkers on St. Patrick’s Day by leaning in close to them and whispering “Psst – St. Patrick was a Wop.” According to the most accurate historical information, that’s probably not true, since his father, while a Roman official of some sort, apparently was born in Britain rather than being an actual emigre from Rome. It was amusing nonetheless. And of course, two days later, I’d wear red, to honor my own Italian ancestry.
Suffern ACE
@gene108: well, i think that Russia might have only 2,000 warheads left thanks to arms reductions. And their army is only 1/5th the size it once was. So bombs away. I bet a plurality of our cities would survive. Sure, Bowling Green would be competing with Laredo for the title of “world class US city”, but why be so dour about that.
Central Planning
The Muppets sing Danny Boy
Betty Cracker
Did you hear about Irish Alzheimer’s? You forget everything but the grudges.
JPL
@SiubhanDuinne: Mandy Patinkin sang Danny Boy on an episode of Chicago Hope and it brought tears to my eyes. Of course, he sang it for his wife who was catatonic so I doubt she enjoyed it.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ash Can:
Long-form certificate of live birth, or it didn’t happen.
SiubhanDuinne
@JPL:
The one that always gets me — largely because of context — is the colliery band outside the hospital in Brassed Off.
WereBear
Since I’m Celtic by marriage, a Happy St Pat’s to all.
NotMax
“Paddy Mulhern, why don’t you give up the drinking and carousing?” asked Mrs. O’Fallon.
“It’s too late for me,” replied Mulhern.
“Saints preserve us, it’s never too late,” assured Mrs. O’Fallon.
“Well, there’s no rush then,” said Mulhern.
WereBear
@NotMax: I love that! It’s a keeper.
The Red Pen
On a separate topic, I found out how the teaturds are defending Christie (et al) banning direct sales of Tesla vehicles: algore is fat.
I’m looking for John McCain to flesh this out (no pun intended) on MTP.
Gin & Tonic
@gene108: In Sevastopol, 123% of the total residents voted for merging with Russia. And GW Bush thought he had a mandate with 50.1% or whatever it was.
Bex
@Betty Cracker: Speaking of grudges, if you’re Irish you may not remember everyone who came to the funeral, but you never forget who didn’t.
big ole hound
@Betty Cracker: So true,so true. That could be said of Southern politicians we have to listen to concerning racism.
Poopyman
@Gin & Tonic: Classic. And yet another reason for tears in The Onion’s editorial offices.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
How do you say ACORN in Russian?
Or maybe it was the New Crimean Panthers.
NotMax
@Gin & Tonic
In its own way, that’s very dada.
Baud
I’ve always wondered why conservative outrage over “hyphenated Americans” never seemed to be directed at the Irish.
WereBear
Formerly oppressed groups like the Irish got in on pigmentation as immigration cast a wider net. Later, the Italians got in.
But really, none of it has to make any sense.
Betty Cracker
Foodie question re: corned beef and cabbage. Every year, I make it in the traditional way, similar to what TaMara outlined on Friday here, only I use a Dutch oven. I like it just fine, but the mister only tolerates the annual event. He’s too nice to order pizza every March 17, but he’s just not a big corned beef and cabbage person.
Anyhoo, any ideas on how to shake things up? I was thinking I might roast the brisket this year (loosely following this recipe) and then make the cabbage separately. Not sure if that’ll help.
JPL
@WereBear: Don’t forget the Polish.
NotMax
@WereBear
Trivia: Population of Ireland, 170+ years since the Great Famine and mass emigration, has not yet returned to the number residing there before 1840.
Baud
@WereBear:
It’s red, white, and blue, not red, white, and green!
NobodySpecial
Happy Amateur Night! A wee song
Schlemizel
@JPL:
Catatonic? That would be the only way I could enjoy it!
WereBear
@JPL: I’ll never forget the Polish!
Ash Can
@SiubhanDuinne: Heck, that’s the whole story (and beauty) of St. Patrick — he was the son of a prominent figure, was kidnapped by the heathen Celts for ransom dough, and ended up getting along so well with his captors that they forgot all about the captivity and ransom bit. They let him go, he went home to pack a suitcase, and he went back to Ireland to stay. He grew to love the Irish people and they loved him right back. It’s one of those situations where the historical truth — as much as we know of it — is even better than any of the legends.
Cervantes
@Betty Cracker: That recipe may work fine, I have not looked at it — but rather than roast the brisket, I would braise it. If you’re looking beyond the usual, you could braise it in a sweet Riesling (I sometimes use a Sauternes).
There’s always corned beef pizza.
Booger
@Baud: You must have missed it. Green was the new black, back in the day.
Omnes Omnibus
I’ll celebrate the holiday the way I have for years. I’ll wear something green to avoid pointless discussions about why I am not wearing green. Aside from that, I’ll stay clear of most of the celebrations. Not my scene at all.
Booger
@Betty Cracker: Make a batch of colcannon, don’t worry about the rest.
Schlemizel
Got to the jury room for week two a few minutes ago. Standing in the middle of the room was an older gentleman wearing the largest American flag bandanna on his head I have ever seen. He was going on at some great length (and fairly loudly) about how happy he was to be on jury duty. He has a strong Eastern European accent. When the jury manager came out to make her welcome announcement he ran up to here & had a very animated conversation. I have him pegged as a guy who is going to try anything he can think of to get out of jury duty.
No sign of the guy from last week whose mother dies from crack and now is demanding he giver her $1000. Bet he ‘forgot’. I wonder if they will sen the sheriffs after him, they claimed they do that. That would be funny – not for that guy but for the rest of us.
gene108
@Gin & Tonic:
The vote totals on the referendum just scream out that fraud on a large scale happened.
Unlike Kim Jon Un’s unanimous election win, I think Putin felt he was being subtle, with only 97% voting in favor
scav
@Ash Can: Certain Bohemians seem to get all Red on St Joe’s day too — so there’s an excuse for good beer along with the pasta. Solid Red Wine with Dumplings. i think this could work.
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
Maybe try stir-frying the cabbage rather than boiling it?
Examples: #1 – #2
Or if boiling, go Bohemian? (I’d replace the water with a slightly greater amount of flat beer, cut way back on the vinegar and use a little sour salt to balance the sugar instead, but whatever floats yer boat.)
Suffern ACE
@Schlemizel: yeah. Ummm. You know that idea I heard floating around how if you say “I’m a racists and I can’t wait to convict a n-clang?” you somehow get out of jury duty? I don’t think that works the way most people -who’ve heard that their friend’s cousin tried it once and it really works – thinks it does. I mean, your friend’s cousin didn’t really bring a rat disguised as a chihuahua back from Mexico either.
Ash Can
@scav: Poles celebrate St. Joseph’s Day too.
M-80 and I were married on March 18 mumblemumble years ago. I told people that St. Pat’s was the big drinking holiday and St. Joe’s was the big food bash, so for our wedding we were going to do both. (And we did!)
currants
@Betty Cracker: LOL! Gonna pass that one along….
Cervantes
@Baud:
Conservative outrage from the likes of Bill O’Reilly, Pat Buchanan, Sean Hannity, and Paul Ryan, you mean?
Cervantes
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m with you on the public aspects, except if I’m wearing anything green on March 17, it’s pure happenstance.
NotMax
@Cervantes
Ooh, snap!
Mnemosyne
Well, that was quite a way to wake up — 4.7 earthquake. (No need to worry much, for us that’s just nature’s alarm clock at this point.)
On the cooking front, I’m making these beef and stout pies for dinner tonight — made the filling last night and will be baking them tonight after work. G suggested Miller’s Crossing as our St. Patrick’s Day movie, so that may be what we watch.
One way to make corned beef a little tastier is with a mustard glaze after most of the cooking is done — here’s one way to do it. That recipe has you bake it, but I’ve usually broiled it.
scav
@Ash Can: So, we can rope in pączki and still more pirohy?! This commonual Red Joe Day is looking better and better, especially if we can fly the Red Joe banner.
NotMax
@Mnemosyne
If you’ve never seen it, Waking Ned Devine is fun.
Betty Cracker
@NotMax: I love that movie! I may have actually pissed myself laughing the first time I saw the scene where the old fellow is riding the motorcycle in the buff (not a spoiler!).
Betty Cracker
Thanks for the cooking suggestions, all who responded. Will research all ideas and make a decision here shortly!
Chris
@Betty Cracker:
The fact that even the Catholic and Protestant Irish have managed to work their way to a peace treaty is the only thing that occasionally gives me hope for the future of Israeli/Palestinian relations.
Ash Can
@scav: Not only that, but in the Catholic church, St. Joseph’s Day — unlike St. Patrick’s Day — is technically a solemnity, which puts it on par with such observances as Christmas and Easter. It’s always during lent, but even if it falls on a Friday there’s no fast or abstinence — bring on the steaks and chops! (Nevertheless, traditional Italian St. Joe’s tables are meatless.They’re loaded with seafood delicacies, garlic pasta, garbanzo bean salads with even more garlic — oh, the sacrifice.)
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
@Betty Cracker:
I love WND very much, but I think my Irish movie of choice today will be The Secret of Roan Inish. It’s a beautiful, haunting film.
SiubhanDuinne
My NPR station is playing “The Garryowen.”
Betty Cracker
@SiubhanDuinne: I’ve always meant to see that and never have. Thanks for the reminder! We usually watch “The Quiet Man,” which is a good movie as a period piece if you can tolerate the casual acceptance of domestic violence and misogyny.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
Think my Irish film needs have been fulfilled. Still smiling at how mind-bendingly, wonderfully awful it was.
SiubhanDuinne
@Betty Cracker:
I have a totally irrational dislike of John Wayne*, so I generally avoid The Quiet Man — but Maureen O’Hara is lovely, so I should probably give it another try.
*(With the single exception of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, which I adore with the same irrational fervor.)
Omnes Omnibus
@SiubhanDuinne: I don’t think that a dislike of John Wayne is irrational. Unless you dislike him for his shoe size or something. He was a right wing asshole, was he not?
SiubhanDuinne
@Omnes Omnibus:
He was, although my visceral dislike of him goes back to childhood — long before I paid a scrap of attention to politics.
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
That sounds … awful.
Betty Cracker
@Omnes Omnibus: He was a rightwing asshole, but I still like him in the movies. I also love Charlton Heston in Ben-Hur and the 10 Commandments even though he was an even bigger rightwing asshole and I am generally contemptuous of religion. And yet, finding out what a rightwing asshole Orson Scott Card was ruined anything he ever wrote for me, not that I was ever a huge fan to begin with. I’m not consistent!
Chris
@Betty Cracker:
It helps that John Wayne has been dead for a long time (Charlton Heston for less), so it’s not like buying his movies is going to generate any money for him. Orson Scott Card is still alive and typing.
Mnemosyne
@Betty Cracker:
What makes it work, though, is that Wayne’s character doesn’t accept those things and treats Mary Kate with total respect. There are at least two times when he’s offered an opportunity to beat her, and he doesn’t even hesitate to reject it. (When the old woman towards the end offers him a stick “to beat the lovely lady with,” he uses it as a walking stick.) He thinks that Mary Kate wanting her dowry is all about the money, but once he realizes it’s not, he’s willing to fight for it.
Plus it has so many quotable lines. “Two women in the house — and one of them a redhead.”
ETA: I think at least part of the reason the DV and misogyny are included is to show that the Old Country ain’t always so great, and there are reasons people left.
schrodinger's cat
@Betty Cracker: The only book of Scott’s I liked was Ender’s Game but after reading the sequels I began finding his world view exclusionary and narrow minded and that turned me off even before I found out about his crazy-town politics.
PurpleGirl
@Betty Cracker:
@SiubhanDuinne:
The John Wayne movie I can watch despite the misogyny and racism (European/Pacific Islanders) is Donovan’s Reef. It has Lee Marvin in a fun role, Dorothy Lamour and a bunch of other good people.
PurpleGirl
@Chris: No, the money goes to his estate and the current beneficiaries of same.
Where do you think the money goes?
sherparick
Parade’s End, I would say.
Faux News and Rupert are really doubling done on the old white, bigot demographic. Actually, the execs at Fox are probably wondering how to keep him away from twitter.
Finally, St. Patrick’s day has mostly been about the party, and as a public party I think everyone who loves fun should be invited. And since they discriminate against my friends, this is a party I no longer want to go to.
satby
My ‘hood for St. Patrick’s Day:
Happy Lá Fhéile Pádraig!
Betty Cracker
@Mnemosyne: Yeah, but doesn’t he finally get the respect of the town and Mary Kate’s love after he shows the little woman who’s boss? He bodily drags her off the train and kicks her butt down the road back toward the town and at one point paddles her butt like a child, IIRC. It’s a symbolic rather than a literal beating, but I thought it was clearly about him asserting his dominance, which is what she wanted so that everyone could be in their place and happy with it. I love the movie, but it was very much a product of the mores of its day, I think.
divF
@NotMax:
A subtly Irish film is The Shipping News. The folk that settled in Newfoundland fishing communities had a large Irish component to them, and it is reflected in the film.
Also, too: Hear My Song, for Irish tenors, Ned Beatty, and the beautiful west coast of Ireland. Also, hilarious.
sherparick
@Mnemosyne: I expect John Ford, the director, had a lot of conflicts about the old ways, Both QM and How Green Was My Valley, had mixture of almost saccharine nostalgia and which makes the shock of realism all the greater (see the scene in the chapel where Katherine O’Hara’s character is outraged at the public banishment and shaming of a girl for getting pregnant, a foreshadow of her own scandal). I think the QM is redeemed by its humor and humanity. We all are inheritors of both the achievements and pain of the sins of the past. John Ford was born in the 19th century and Wayne in the first decade of the 20th. There is a lot of racism in the Searchers, but also anti-racism, and in the movie that is what eventually triumphs. When I look at movies like these, I think about the things I thought and believe that people in 50 years are going to be outraged about. (I suspect it will be environmental problems).
schrodinger's cat
Did any wingnut heads explode after seeing yesterday’s Cosmos?
The Pale Scot
Paddy ran into Conell at the pub and asked him how their friend O’Reilly fared,
Conell replied that he was dead.
When did die? Paddy asked,
Well, if he’d live to next thursday he’d be dead a month
Mnemosyne
@Betty Cracker:
I think you remember incorrectly about the spanking. He does drag her through the countryside partly to punish her for trying to leave him, but what he’s doing is returning her to her brother’s custody because her brother won’t pay up on her dowry. He’s actually respecting her belief that she’s “no married woman” until she has her dowry (which, in the moment, kinda pisses her off because she slept with him the night before). That’s why they burn the money as soon as her brother gives it to him, and she then docilely returns to the cottage to start cooking dinner — he has demonstrated in front of the entire village that he values her in the way she needs him to, weird as he finds that value to be.
So there’s definitely a lot of casual misogyny and domestic violence in the world of the film, but the film makes it pretty clear that Sean is only going to participate in it symbolically and for the benefit of other people, not in his own home.
ETA: She sleeps with him because she loves him, but she leaves him the next day because she can’t stand that the rest of the village doesn’t respect him. The “returning her to her brother” and the fistfight all happens to get the rest of the village to respect Sean.
Mnemosyne
@sherparick:
Ford is definitely one of those directors who was changed by what he saw in World War II — his pre-war films are much more morally black-and-white and he really started to re-think his portrayals of American Indians. In some ways, The Quiet Man is about wanting to go back to a simpler time and place, only to discover that “simpler” can also mean “backwards.”
But he was always pretty good about women — in Stagecoach, the hero marries the ex-prostitute without much of a problem.
Origuy
For a light romantic comedy set in Ireland, there’s The Matchmaker with Janeane Garafalo and Denis Leary. Some nice west coast scenery and good Irish music.
mdblanche
A ballad by a man as Irish as corned beef and cabbage: Tom Lehrer.
Betty Cracker
Regarding the remix of the traditional boiled feast, I decided to roast the corned beef with a bunch of different peppers rubbed into it (got a Penzey’s gift pack for Xmas — awesome present!) and make colcannon like this rather than the usual boiled cabbage.
Betty Cracker
@Mnemosyne: I could definitely be wrong about the spanking, even though I’ve seen it a hundred times. Your larger point — that in the context Sean was more progressive than the town — I agree with, though certainly the film is a product of its time.
I also agree about the quotes. One I particularly like: “I’ll do no such shameless thing!” I’ve found plenty of use for that one!
Mnemosyne
@Betty Cracker:
Father Lonargan gets some good ones:
“Ah, yes… I knew your people, Sean. Your grandfather; he died in Australia, in a penal colony. And your father, he was a good man too.”
(when the Anglican archbishop is driving by with the protestant minister): “Now, all of yez cheer like good Protestants!”
mclaren
Has something happened to the superwealthy one percenter Richard Mayhew? He’s not spamming us with two dishonest posts per days explaining the convoluted and highly improbable reasons why American insurance companies need to pay America’s already overpaid doctors even more cash (U.S. doctors at present make 200% to 300% what doctors in Europe make — the average American general practitioner makes $230,000 compared to the average German or French GP’s $80,000).
C’mon, Richard Mayhew, where are you?
Why aren’t you explaining why $3500 MRI scans are necessary and affordable for Americans even though the exact same MRI scan with the exact same machine costs $250 in France?
another Holocene human
@Gin & Tonic: Clap harder! Comrade, are you ill? Your hand movements look feeble.