Happy St. Patrick's Week

With one of the largest Irish immigrant populations in the country, Chicago was indelibly changed by the heritage of everyone's Irish forbears. And by "everyone" I mean almost that. There's not a single person in the city--black, white, Jewish, Muslim--who doesn't dress up in green on ol' St. Paddy's death-day. And of course, the Chicago River is dyed green for the parade. ("So why don't they dye it blue the rest of the year?" the old joke goes.)

So it was in the spirit of St. Patrick that my (Eastern-European Jewish) friend Allison and I (of 1/32 Irish heritage) set off to find ourselves some Irishmen last Friday. Brogues we found aplenty at the first bar we went to, Celtic Crossings, but unfortunately only on 40- and 50-year-old men. Heading to "Planet Ireland," a chain pub called Fado, we eventually found ourselves in Lake Point Tower.


Chicago has two mouth-wateringly posh addresses: Michigan Avenue and Lakeshore Drive. Lake Point Tower is not only on LSD, but is famous enough to warrant mention in my architecture class in college. Oh, and Oprah used to own an entire floor. It was amazing to sit, sipping a drink, and stare across the street to the Ferris Wheel on Navy Pier. Ah, what a life.

Saturday night I found myself on an impromptu barcrawl around Wicker Park (a trendy, hipster-filled neighborhood in which I'd love to live). My neighbor and I started off the evening with shots of my Prague absinthe and continued on a three or four other venues. One of the highlights was tasting this drink, a tequila-laced concoction with a floating glowstick:


The Irish theme continued with the famous South Side Parade, a rival to the North Side Parade. Odds are, if you're Irish in Chicago you're South Side Irish, and you don't let people forget it. Luckily, my friend Sam hails from an enormous Irish clan (with a Swiss surname--but they're Irish, damnit!). Corned beef, cabbage, potatoes: we ate in style after watching bagpipers and floats for every union in the city.

At my new job, the building hosted a buffett of Irish-themed pastries on Tuesday of all days. (Don't ask, cuz I don't know why either.) With a lull on Wednesday, it was time for The Big Day. Decked out with green nail polish and my green beads from the South Side Parade, I was outshone by my co-workers' various shades of green randing from virulent to lovely.

To celebrate in style, I went to the vegetarian biker bar (as in bicyclists) I seen to frequent with alarming frequency. My friend Sam knew a guy in the band that was playing. Incidentally, so did I, as he was in the same theatre group in college and dated another friend named Sam. "One of the Girls" is made up of four guys, and as we not only knew half of the band but were seated directly in front of them, it was a rollickin' good time. Celtic music buff that I am, I'm sorry to report that my Irish drinking song repertoire is limited to the occassional chorus. Nonetheless, I sang and clapped along with gusto. Nothing beats live music, and I've resolved to try to make some seisuns (Celtic music groups) around town.

So that, my ducks, was my St. Patrick's Week. Upcoming events include:

• bar-hopping in River North tonight with my pal Andy
  
• having my friend Tom visit from St. Louis for the weekend
• a birthday soiree tomorrow night for my French friend Louis, followed by a Gothic kegger/birthday party for this guy Moses and DJ Scary Lady Sarah (see below)
  
• an night of obscure Japanese bands on Sunday