Saint Patrick's Day

Saint Patrick's Day

3/17/2017 Justin Arn

Saint Patrick's Day.  As a bartender I can tell you this is the single worst day of  the year.  Cinco de Mayo? Ha! Nope. Thanksgiving eve? A walk in the park. But screw Saint Patrick's Day. Especially if it's on a Friday...

I've been unemployed many times in my life. Most of those times I would generally describe as unpleasant but with Saint Patrick's day on a Friday, I can tell you I'm ecstatic not to be behind the bar right now.  This holiday bring's out the absolute worst clientele.  Ironically it's a clintele I'm a member of: mid-to lower class white males.






This bullshit holiday has been concocted to assuage two of our major insecurities:

• That we are culture-less vagabonds with no heritage and therefore no value in the romantic sense. Because to value culture and heritage is the epitome of romanticism. And we don't. 
• That that youthful desire to bellicose drunkenness we display on so often a basis, somehow is our culture. I can assure you it is not. 

7pm. I can already hear the howling. From Adams Avenue to El Cajon Blvd, you can feel the faux-Irish beats resounding into the very pavement. The same slick wet pavement pushed down ever further the shuffling Vans of thousand revellers half-pissed on green beer. Ugh...

Let us talk of better things.

The Desert Blooms

3/17/2017 Justin Arn

I spent my Saint Patrick's day in Anza Borrego.  The desert is in a bloom unlike any we've seen in many years now. The heavy rain that pummelled San Diego week after week has borne beautiful effects throughout the city's parks and neighborhood gardens,

But the rain's effect on the real desert to the East has been muted, at least in terms of color scheme.
But for a very short period, the desert blooms. It's sand gives way to seed and the result is this.