St. Patrick's Day In California (St. Paddy's Day)

Learn how Californians celebrate Saint Patrick's Day in Southern California in 2024. 

Arika is back as she talks to Joshdangit about the Irish celebration and holiday of st. Patrick's day. 

Transcript

I really kind of hate doing these intros because it sounds so fake. Okay, well then don't. No, I'm gonna do it.

No. Three, two, one. Hey, everybody out there.

Okay. How's it going? Welcome back to... Yeah, what? We're supposed to do it together. That's the thing.

I know. Remember? Yeah, whatever. Okay, ready? Okay.

Hey, everyone. Yeah, whatever. Yeah, whatever. 

Perfect. Okay. All right, just keep rolling.

So, it is the middle of March. Yes. 2024. 

And guess what that means? Green day. Today's green day. And I'm not talking about that green day. 

I'm talking about St. Patty's Day. Happy St. Patrick's Day. Sláinte.

Sláinte. I am still hungover. Oh, wow. 

Yeah. No, the States kind of does a whole weekend thing, right? Oh, boy. A little bit of anxiety right now, actually.

Oh, I'm sorry about that. And now, I don't know if that was the right move. Caffeine heighty.

Yeah. And I also had like four different vitamins. Oh, gosh.

I don't know. I don't think you should have done that. And you're about to go to work, too.

Yeah, I'm definitely gonna be pumped for work. Which will be good because... I've never heard of that. I didn't say plumped. 

I said pumped. Oh, pumped. I thought you said, I'm gonna be plumped for work.

Because I am plumped for work as well. All righty, then. So... I can't keep track of the same terms.

You know what? It's gonna be super busy. So that'll be nice. I'll be ready.

Yeah. Are you guys doing anything interesting for St. Patty's Day? Wow. That's impressive talent.

I want to eat this microphone. Oh, you're hungry? No. Oh, you just want to eat it? Yeah, it's just so... I don't know.

So is your Mexican restaurant having any Irish stuff today? Yeah, they have green margaritas. Oh, okay. That's it. 

The goblet things? Yeah. Oh, I love your goblet things. You know what I mean? The goblet margaritas at your work.

Okay. Anyhoo. Oh, look. 

There goes my laughter off the sound chart. Yeah. So yeah.

Are you going to do this fine St. Patrick's Day? Because you don't have work. I don't have work. I have a lot of editing to do.

I could clean my room for once. But as of like going out and exploring, I might hit up like locally. Like what's seeing what's going on? Like the beer garden across the street or something like that.

Oh, I bet. Oh, yeah. The beer garden is doing stuff.

Yeah, they're probably doing a lot of stuff. I don't know. I kind of feel sort of like an outsider a little bit when a non-white person tries to celebrate like St. Patty's Day or something like that.

No, it's for everyone. Yeah, I understand. And it's interesting because I actually do have Irish blood in me.

See, you have every right to celebrate just as anyone else. I don't look it. I am half white and my mom is actually half or a quarter Dutch.

So I'm mostly European, but it just feels weird. It's like seeing I don't know if you saw the San Francisco parade, but there is like a bunch of Asians dressed up in like. It's cool.

I think it's cool. It's very diverse. It is cool.

This is like how they probably feel when like white people celebrate Chinese New Year. I always like wonder how white people think of that stuff. Like, oh, it's an Asian trying to like celebrate.

I don't know. I don't think we have a whole lot of holidays to make those kind of calls. So but I think it's cool.

I think it's really cool seeing like Asians with like their face painted in the Irish flag. It's it's really interesting. Right. 

Okay. And also like you might look like Indonesian, but as soon as you open your mouth, everyone knows you're a white boy. So that is very true.

You're good. Yeah. Oh, man.

Yeah. A lot is going on. This is actually also the kind of the four year anniversary of COVID like around this time.

Oh, yeah. I and you know, four years ago, St. Patty's Day wasn't even a thing. I think most of the celebrations were shut down or people had like illegal parties and stuff.

Yeah. But yeah, it's been such a crazy ride these last four years. Do you feel at all like the shadows of COVID or do you think we've all pretty much moved on? I still feel it.

I mean, I feel like there's still it's more like people and then like certain establishments that are like they're like still wary and they'll like maybe now and then ask you to wear a mask. And it's like, OK, like, I don't know. I was actually thinking about that this morning.

Like, right. Are they was the whole goal of this? Sorry to get a little conspiratory, but like was the whole goal to like it was the whole goal to like make, you know, people like kind of permanently afraid of, you know, collecting and like being united, like because I do feel like there's like this ever since COVID, there's been this like hesitance for people to congregate a little bit. I mean, there's still a lot of congregation happening, but I know like for my restaurant, at least like everyone that I've talked to that works there that was there before COVID said that it's never been the same since like they just haven't had the same business ever since.

I think business is really struggling and definitely you're right. It hasn't been like a lot of people throw this term around like pre-pandemic numbers, a lot of different things. I'm like, oh, my gosh, like our sales are like back to pre-pandemic numbers.

And it's just like, oh, my gosh, this is like an actual thing that we've been dealing with to try to get back to. And I feel like not only as like a business in a society, but I feel like emotionally people are trying to get back to pre-pandemic. Like a lot of people's plans are put on hold.

A lot of people's dreams are put on hold. And I feel like I don't think that there's like a conspiracy going on personally, at least from like a government or like a societal level that's just trying to keep everyone not together. But I do think there is a natural like people just are weary of doing that.

I don't know why. But even like even at like really crowded places at Disneyland, there's still there's still like tapes in the places, you know, where people have to like, and I'm just like, wow, that was really good. So I don't think there's a conspiracy going on.

Yeah. But why do you think you see? I don't know. It just seems a little bit like there's like businesses that benefited a lot from COVID happening and like nobody ever quite went back to normal.

So a lot of smaller businesses got kind of squeezed out. And it just seems like, oh my God, I don't know what that little timer is on your laptop, but those numbers are so fast. It's making me nervous.

This is what happens when you take all the vitamins at once. Milliseconds. Are those milliseconds? Yeah, milliseconds.

Wow. That's crazy. I'm not sure why it does that.

Because it's passing all the time and I'm getting older. All the time. And my eggs are dying.

Existential crisis. So that was for all of my fans out there. And I just want to thank you all for coming.

Yeah, just you and Matt and Sarah, my three number one fans. Yes. And Liz.

She's like my biggest cheerleader. Anyways, so how are we doing? So what are we talking about? Well, this is the first official podcast. That's normal that we're just trying to get back into the swing of things.

We're not trying to deal with any hard issues, you know. Well, I think we're always going through some stuff, but we don't have to. Yeah.

But, you know, this is a very important weekend. It's the middle of March. We're trying to get back in the swing of things.

This is not an important weekend. St. Patty's Day is an important weekend. It is also an anniversary of COVID.

I feel a lot of people are just trying to get back into pre-pandemic happiness, just like we're trying to do. You're so weird. You're so weird.

Thank you. Yeah, I'm weird. I wonder if they can hear me when I pound the mic against my dimple chin.

Yes. Or maybe the dimple like buffers it. No, I don't think so.

You need a pretty fat chin to like, you know, I think they can hear that. Okay. You're just saying bone right now.

Well, yeah, I don't know. I'm hungover and my brain is in all these places. I think green beer is a cool thing.

I went to an Irish pub last night and they had that place was like the most Irish pub I've ever seen. There was pictures of Ireland everywhere. They had like a poster of like Irish cottages.

You go in the ladies room and there's like pictures of Irish countryside about the toilet. Is it like they just put all these pictures up like last minute? Like, no, no, no. They were like, okay, old ass posters of like Ireland and like pictures of cottages in the countryside.

And they had posted like little papers like they taped up of different Irish sayings. Oh, yeah. But there was also some that were just painted all over the bar.

That's really cool. And it was cool. And it was an authentic Irish pub.

Actually, I have I have an Irish, an old Irish curse for you guys to hear. Okay, okay. What is it going to be in Gaelic or Gaelic? Gaelic.

Gaelic. It sounds like garlic with a... Gaelic, Gaelic, Gaelic. Twist, a little pizzazz.

Shush, shush, no ronin. Okay, ready guys? Here's my, here's my curse for us. And I don't think I have to bleep this out.

An old Irish curse. May those that love us, love us. Wait, I don't know how to talk with an Irish accent.

That's a curse. I don't know how to, I don't know how to talk with an... What's the Irish accent? Irish, Irish. Oh, top of the mornin' to ya.

Top of the mornin' to ya lad. Your voice. Oh.

Top of the mornin' to ya. There you go. You, you, you watch all those, all those Irish videos.

Lucky Charms commercials, I know. Oh, Irish videos. Is that like, am I talking more Scottish or is that Irish? That's more Scottish.

Okay, well, I'm not going to try. They, they do the rolling R's a lot. Like, great, that's a great.

Think of Shrek, Shrek is Scottish. So think of Shrek. But that's all I know.

You don't know Irish? Do you, have you seen a Lucky Charms commercial? All I know is Shrek. Say top of the mornin' to ya. Top of the mornin' to ya.

That's Irish, you got it. An old Irish curse, like that? Yeah, you got it, I think. May those that love us, love us.

And those that don't love us, may God turn their hearts If he can't turn their hearts, may he turn their ankles So we'll know them by their limping. Wow, just like Northern Ireland, you sort of changed into English there for a little bit. I am sorry, I know that's a, that's a sore spot.

I'm sorry, I take it back. I wish I knew anything about history so I knew what you're talking about right now. Okay.

Or even maybe current events. I don't know what you're talking about. It's like, so Ireland, the island is broken off into two parts.

The northern part is England took it over and Irish people never really forgave them. Everybody died? Everyone except Shrek. Okay.

Yeah, he was able to keep his swamp. So that's a little bit of history lesson for you guys. So what was this curse word? I think you were just saying like a poem.

No, it's a curse. Oh, it's a curse. Yeah.

I thought you said curse word. No. Okay, like I'm gonna tell you a curse word.

Okay, well I'm disappointed now. I wanted to hear some Gaelic curse words. So what does that curse mean? What is it? Why would you curse someone with that? No, it's like a prayer, but it's like a negative prayer.

That's the lamest curse I've ever heard. I think it was funny. It made me laugh.

A plague upon your family and children to the 10th generation. Now that's a curse. It did say may God turn their ankles so we know them by their limping.

Turn their ankles. Oh, so they just snapped their ankles? Yeah. Geez.

All right, that's pretty bad. Okay, so moving on. Um, by the way, thanks for not telling me that you changed the time on our oven the other day.

Oh, yeah. Because I've been used to that thing being seven minutes ahead for the past two years. It's right on time now.

So when I went to leave for work, I thought I was gonna be on time. And then I wasn't because I got in my car and I had like 15 minutes to get there. Oh, shoot.

Sorry. Maybe you shouldn't cut it so close. Probably not.

But at least I would have been on time. Okay, hey, how about this? How about you just tell me? How about for the next two weeks? I set it to 20 minutes late. That means you can catch up.

How about that? Does that work? Does it work that way? No, no, no. Don't for the next two weeks. Don't change it.

How about every day? I'm going to change it to a random different time. What's happening with your hair? You're going to try to figure out if you're going to be late or early to work. Your hair is always doing crazy things.

Right now there's like a little spoof of it just like off to the side, like a little alfalfa sprout just to one direction. Well, I haven't bathed myself in weeks. So that's probably what happens.

Yeah, this is just my body grease getting into my hair. Do you want an Irish girl? An Irish girl? Sure, I'll take one. That's good answer.

Yeah. Yeah, sure. I feel like you like their accent.

I think that's one of your like... You know, out of the three accents on the British Isle or four accents, actually, you know the one that drives me the most crazy? Welsh? The Welsh accent. Okay, I think I remember you telling me that. I thought it was Irish.

I don't know why. They're just like, they're the most country-esque. Oh, okay.

They're the most bumpkin. So... Maybe you should visit Wales. Maybe I should.

You almost said Welshland. Why would it ever be Welshland? What is this, a theme park? You should visit Wales. I should visit Wales.

Stop a nice Welsh girl. Yeah, in Welshland. So... I wonder if there's a website, kind of like you can buy Russian brides.

I wonder if you can buy a Welsh bride. I'm pretty sure that's the thing. And if it's not, I'm going to call some people.

This podcast is brought to you by welshhookup.com. And if that does exist, I am so... Did you stop trying to swallow the mic? But it's in my face. I know that's a natural reaction to anything near your face, but stop it. Okay, so... Oh, there's a child singing outside.

It's kind of creepy, actually. Hey mister, are you wearing green today? I'm gonna get you. Your voice is off the chart.

I know. Thank you. That's so nice.

Wait, so what time is it really? This says 155. The oven says 154. Oh my god.

So it's 155. Such a discrepancy. I can't deal with this right now.

I can't either. No, I literally cut things down. Why don't you just say it's nine? Why don't we say it's 55? So you can be safe.

So you have five minutes to get out of here. Okay. So anyways... Ireland is... So anyway, you're 100% English and right now you're trying to lie to everybody.

No, no, no. I'm 66% British and I'm like 7% or 10% Irish. Oh really? Yeah.

Okay, we're the same percentage of Irish. That's weird. High five.

High-rish. High-rish. Anyways, so Ireland is cool because I feel like they have... It's very green.

I think that's why a lot of the St. Paddy's is themed green. Oh my gosh. Did you just put those two together? And so, don't they call it the Emerald Island? The Emerald Isle.

The Emerald Isle. Yeah. I think that's beautiful.

I don't know if they have forests or not though. I think it's just a lot of hills, right? It's a lot of stony hills. Yeah.

But I think there's some forests. I think the forest is more in England and that's why you have the Robin Hood in the forest and all that stuff. So, I'm based my history off of books and TV shows.

I used to always want to visit Ireland. I think I would visit it, but it's not really high on my list because I don't know. I think the idea of green hills and sea cliffs is beautiful, but at the same time, I'm really into woods, like trees, forests, stuff like that.

And when I was looking at all those pictures yesterday of the Irish cottages, they were all on like these desolate green hills that were just like grass, like just like a big grass hill for like hundreds and hundreds of feet and like a solitary house. And I know that's like pretty to some people, but to me, it just like makes me nervous. Like that is very solitary.

Okay. Very solitary and not, I think it's like a, it's like a, almost like a desolate type of beauty, like nature. But I like the, I like the plants, like a lot of plants.

Well, I know that it's like farming over there. We used to be pretty hard because of all the stones in the field. And it's like, you know, it rains all the time and the great famine.

And that's why we're mostly Americans or Irish. So, you really need to brush up on your history a little bit. Yeah.

I honestly probably just need to like take a few history classes. Yeah. Or just watch like a five minute YouTube video would probably get you the highlights of history.

Really? Yeah. Yeah. They do it pretty well now.

Yeah. I've always wanted somebody to just that. I mean, I haven't thought about this in years.

I think it was like before YouTube, I always wanted to just like sit down and have somebody explain to me world history in like a concise way. Okay. Where it all, where I know what's going on in different places of the world at the same time, because I feel like I always learned about history and like what was happening.

And then I associated that with whatever area I learned about, like, oh, okay. You know, in the 1500s, it was like, oh God, here I go. Okay.

Let's see. It's going to be wrong. History lesson with Erica.

Medieval times, right? It's like the, you know, that's, it was a very, and then there was that, what was that word? The gilded age. No, wait, that was way later. Yeah.

A little bit later. Okay. So, but there was like that, that, the, the dark ages, right? The dark ages was around then.

Also called the middle ages. So. So yeah.

And then there's these different words and like, I can't keep up, but so the thing is, is that I'll, I'll, I'll learn about that and I'll be like, oh, okay. So this is what was happening in 1500. And then you like read somewhere else about like something that happened in fricking, I don't know what, what was going on in China at that time.

And you're like, oh, okay. And so then I get it all mixed up. Cause to me, they're completely different eras.

But in reality, it was the same, like time of the world. It's just in different places. So I just need to like sit down and I need to like, if there's a video like that, I need to watch it because I need to, I need the whole picture.

Cause if you just give me pieces, it messes with my little brain. I think the best history teachers is true of the best teachers in general. They take something that might not be interesting to everybody and actually makes it interesting to everybody like history.

Like a lot of people actually don't like history. I love history because it's like a story. Like I love stories.

So you're just telling me there's, these are stories that actually happened. That's the only difference. And, you know, to me, it's fascinating how like different time periods can connect and like what's happening and blah, blah, blah.

And, you know, you just have to find someone if you want to learn it or YouTube video, you know, that does a really good job that just tells you a very quick history of like Ireland or something, what happened and you know, what St. Patrick's day, who was St. Patrick? What did St. Patrick do? Why do we celebrate it? Why do we wear green? You know, things like that. Speaking of that, can you briefly explain what St. Patty's is celebrating? Why do we celebrate it? St. Patrick's day is basically, I don't want to mix up my Irish history, but I'm pretty sure he was the one that made Ireland Catholic. So St. Patrick's day, he was, he was basically made, he brought Catholicism into Ireland and he was like the first saint of that.

Okay. And we're, and we're thankful for that. Apparently.

Yeah, apparently I get it mixed up to them from their pagan ways. I get it. I think so.

It's like they, they became, they became Catholic from paganism. That's St. Patrick's day. But I always get it mixed up with the story of the guy with the flute that, that played the flute and all the mice from the village followed him out of the town, which I don't think that St. Patrick's day wildly different stories.

It would be amazing if we actually celebrated that story as well. That's pretty cool. Did you say all the mice? Yeah.

So there was like a mice infestation and like he played us a little flute and then the mice followed the guy with the flute and he danced his way out of the town and all the mice kind of followed him, you know? And yeah, he was, he was, I think that's a metaphor for the black death. So I'm not sure. Anyway.

Well, on that note, this podcast is sponsored by the Black Death. Just kidding. That's terrible actually.

I hate making wide events just because it isn't relevant to me. Cause it's like a plague. Did you know that the plague is still around? Many people.

Yeah. In Yellowstone or in Yosemite, Black Plague. Look it up.

Okay. So I hate to end so quickly. Oh my gosh.

So abrupt. Yeah. So I'm going to, I'm going to bless you guys with an Irish blessing.

So you cursed us first and now you're going to bless us. Offset. May the, let's see if I can read this.

I took this picture of this thing in the bar last night. Oh gosh. And when you, when you were hammered.

The road rise to meet you. May the wind always be at your back. The sun shine warm upon your face.

The rain fall upon your fields. And until we meet again, may God hold you in the hollow of his hand. Oh, wow.

You're reading. Is that, was that an English? It sounded like you were struggling. I was actually interpreting Gaelic.

Oh, Gaelic. I'm just kidding. Okay.

That would have been impressive. But that was an English. Okay.

Happy St. Patty's day guys. Happy St. Patrick's day everyone. Till next time.

Till next time. Uh, Sláinte. Sláinte.

All right. Get off to work.