Can’t live with hounds for a generation without turning into one. Problem is, I’m not a nice one. I bite.

I’m not a nice guy. I have many Irish friends. Yet I wrote this. A satire of Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill, the brawny hairy chested alcoholics in remission who beat up average Joes and win acclaim for their authenticity from The New Yorker and the Times. Great life if you can get it, right? But every year, every single year, there’s a day when even the brawniest hairy fingered lout who thinks he can write has to walk by an Irish pub and not go inside. Voila! (And if you don’t pronounce the V as a V, the Jersey Latin squad will be coming for you.)

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March 17, 2000

The Tough Guy

It’s St. Patrick’s Day!
It’s St. Patrick’s Day!
I was going to say something there. Hold on a sec.
It’s St. Patrick’s Day!
It’s St. Patrick’s Day!

You know, the thing about these support groups is what a bunch of stuffed-shirt, killjoy, bigoted, anti-Irish, English-ass-kissing, boring sumbitches they are. Did you know that? Did you?

You hold their hand, and listen to all their dull, dull stories about their dull, dull problems, and you all sit there not drinking, and forcing down all that bad coffee, which is even decaf for God’s sake, and do they appreciate it? Do they come around on St. Patrick’s Day to say, “Thanks old man. Erin go bragh. Top o’ the mornin’ to you. And by the way, this is one day when you really should take a break from all this dull no-drinking bullcrap crap you usually do.” Do they do that?

No. They don’t. Here’s what they do. They call up that little fairy intern who works in the office next to you, and they tell him to go hunting
through all your desk drawers for the bottle of fine old Irish blarney you’ve filed away for this one extremely special, wonderful day of the year, and they order him to steal that bottle like some little damn fairy thief AND POUR IT DOWN THE TOILET.

DAMN.

But I wasn’t born yesterday. My old man didn’t raise no fool. He was Irish. He was a cop. He was in the big one. He knew all the tricks. And I know’em too. I wouldn’t leave no bottle of genuine fine old Irish blarney in my damn desk drawer where some little fairy intern could get at it AND POUR IT DOWN THE TOILET.

I wouldn’t do that. What I would do, if you’re asking me, is this. I would replace the genuine old Irish blarney in that bottle with some cheap, lousy, made-last-week- in-New-Joisey crap, and I would make sure that I had the real blarney in my briefcase, right where I could get at it if some little fairy thief decided to listen to a bunch of stuffed-shirt support-group Republians and take my blarney AND POUR IT DOWN THE TOILET.

That’s what I would do. If you’re asking.

By the way…

It’s St. Patrick’s Day! It’s St. Patrick’s Day! How the hell are you today?
I’m fine. I really am.

There was something in particular I was going to write about in the column today. It’s on the tip of my tongue. I’ll have it in just a moment. Hold on. Gun control? Maybe that was it. Hold on a sec.

It’s St. Patrick’s Day!

Hold on.

I think it was about this Charleston Heston Republian stuffed-shirt bigoted anti-Irish support-group killjoy… Hold on.

It’s St. Patrick’s Day! It’s St. Patrick’s Day! It’s St. Patrick’s Day!

Hold on.

I’ve got it. Hold on.

It’s St. Patr

The Tough Guy is a regular Star feature contributed by columnist Jimmy Bricker.
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Being Scottish gives you lots of cover. But even I have to admit that this is a 15 year old microaggression that deserves a safe space. Good thing I know where that safe space is.