Happy St. Patrick's Day!

People who don't like to drink a lot often make fun of other people who celebrate St. Patrick's Day. You're not Irish. You're not Catholic. It's just an excuse to drink.

Well yes. It is just an excuse to drink. Now, if I lived in a Mansion somewhere in the wilds of California, you might make a case for me just being a lush. But I live in Cleveland, one of the poorest cities in the country. A city somewhere between Detroit and Youngstown. And I think that if you live somewhere like this, you might as well be Irish.

1. Clevelanders eat a lot of potatoes. Potato pancakes. French Fries. Pierogis. Potatoes are one of the main staples of the Cleveland diet. They are also a reason that we die early, just like the Irish.

2. Clevelanders are poor. If we had peat bogs, we would certainly use them for fuel rather than get raped by the gas company. If Indian burial sites produced lots of natural gas, we'd be getting robbed by American fuel companies too.

3. Clevelanders live by a sea. Lake Erie is an inland sea. Lots of people have died on Lake Erie, and we also have lots of ballads about them. Plus we have made up sea monsters.

4. Clevelanders are mostly an ugly lot. Irish are mostly ugly too. The pretty ones are very rare, most Irish people have squished Colm Meaney faces.

5. Cleveland men are known for talking too much and drinking too much, because their hopes have been crushed and life is shit. They also don't like British people very much. And they fight poorly.

6. Bush has fucked us over too.

7. We live in what used to be a beautiful glacier valley, which now resembles a scene from the Jungle. However when green does appear here, it can be pretty spectacular too. Kudzu is vibrant in August.

8. The luck o' Cleveland is pretty similar to the luck o' the Irish.

9. Almost every Clevelander is trying to get out of Cleveland, at least passively. Only they can't afford to. Or they knock up their girlfriend. Or they love their dad and mum too much. Also, every job in Cleveland is a dead end job.

Our city is dying. Our economy is dying. Our people are inbred. Beauty is reserved for the rich out of towners (ie Westlake), and the rest of us struggle to pay rent on tenements while eschewing proper birth control. So why shouldn't Lakewood have more Irish bars per sq. foot than any other city outside Dublin?

Happy St. Patrick's Day! It's the Poor Man's Holiday.