I warned my readers in the beginning that this blog might contain occasional rants. So far I have kept the lid on but no longer. When I see our great rite of spring referred to as "St. Patty's Day," I am ready to blow a gasket. Where did this abomination come from?
St. Patrick's Day is fine if a little formal. "St Paddy's Day" is comfortable and unpretentious especially for those of us with a healthy skepticism of religious formality. But what kind of fiend coined "St. Patty's Day?' Every corpuscle of my Irish blood rebels against this Disneyized, Hallmarked, Fox-newsed abomination. Like the anemic spawn of a morning television show presenter and puerile sitcom star, this appellation has all the insincerity and triviality of a game show. I never once met a man called "Patty." It might suit a hamburger or a peppermint but not the patron saint of Ireland even if he was a Roman Briton. This has to stop. Don't let them get away with this.
I know that other problems like global warming and the war in Iraq and Nero in the White House may seem more pressing but 1600 hundred years of Irish history and culture are at stake here and deserve to be treated better than minced beef.
Okay, I think I'm all better now, at least until next March.
Luckily, Aoife, George and I got out to Chicago on Thursday night last to meet up with Matt & Shannon. If we had waited until Friday, we might very well have been stuck here in Providence with the snowstorm that disrupted flights for four days. We had lovely gigs Glen Ellyn, IL, Wausau, WI and Schaumburg, IL and great weather to go with them. Many of our friends on the east coast had to cancel gigs because of the weather so we felt very fortunate.
Isn't it odd that in thirty years of traveling around the USA and Canada in the month of March, the only gigs ever cancelled due to bad weather were in Dallas, TX and Richmond, VA? We had some close calls in other places. I remember rushing off stage into a taxi on Prince Edward Island in a mad dash to the airport to get out before a blizzard hit and crunching through the snow on Third Avenue in New York when a taxi could not be found at any price. But overall the show went on regardless and people turned out no matter what the weather. I guess it's all part of March madness and I don't mean basketball. So here's to Naomh Padraig and the rites of spring!
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Ranting because under-educated or ill-informed people who do not know St Patrick are calling him by the wrong name? Come, my man. Think what other names he must have been called during his illustrious lifetime: "Sinner!" from the skeptical Church hierarchy, "you there, slave!" by his master-owner in Ireland, or goodness knows what. My point? We often miss-call those whom we do not know or base our names on others' possibly slanted opinions. The same could be said of those who refer to that "Nero in the White House," wouldn't you agree?
Maewynia
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