Don’t you just hate your popular friends? I mean, while you’re sitting at home every weekend staring at the phone and wondering why it’s not ringing with offers to go out, your popular friends are as busy as 911 operators, fielding calls from event planners and nightlife impresarios left and right.
And while you dread every party-holiday – such as New Year’s Eve, Mardi Gras, your birthday, Tuesday, or the big drink-o-rama coming up this weekend, St. Patrick’s Day – your popular friends have a million places to go and a zillion people to see. Jerks.
So if you’re like me, and you live in Fort Worth and are pretty much a social retard, you’ll enjoy this, The Lovable Loser’s Guide to Surviving the Effin Party-Holidays®.
First, pick a group of friends to hang out with and stick with ’em. Invite yourself, go ‘head, and if anyone accuses you of being presumptuous, just say that you’ve developed an awful reputation as an aloof genius and are trying to beat it back. Also, you may need a ride home, and you aren’t gonna wanna wait ’til 2027 for a cab.
Choose wisely. All of our friends fall into one of three groups:
1.) Friends We’d Like to Party With But Don’t (celebrities, heirs and heiresses to fortunes, models). They’re neither going to call you nor accept your calls, so let’s move on, shall we?
2.) Friends We Somehow – and Often Against Our Wishes and/or Better Judgment – Always Seem to End Up Partying With (co-workers, neighbors, real friends). They’re a little boring, and hanging out with them on a party-holiday wouldn’t be any different from hanging out with them on an ice floe surrounded by hungry polar bears in the Antarctic, but they’re trustworthy, dependable, and you can sneak drinks on their tab.
And 3.) Family.
Second thing: Where to go? Seeing as St. Paddy’s Day is this weekend, let’s keep the discussion focused on Irish-themed joints.
Shamrock Pub: A clean, well-lighted place owned and operated by a board-certified Irishman, this Westside staple offers something for everybody. Your two-beers-and-they’re-blotto, lampshade-wearing co-workers will love drooling on and falling (literally) over its clientele of young, attractive folks. Mom will love avuncular owner Matt McEntire. And if you play your cards right, you could bump into one of your rich and famous pals at the precise moment he’s buying his real friends a round. Just elbow your way in there. That’s it. Don’t be shy. Maybe next time, the rat-bastard will think twice about not returning one of your 30 daily calls.
Ye Olde Bull & Bush: The ideal spot to take (or tail) a family member, preferably not one of your favorites. Here, among the pieces of park bench-y furniture and beneath the tv’s tuned to soccer and/or soccer hooliganism, you can really give your man a piece of your mind. The best part is that while you guys are smacking each other around a little, the Irish and Irish-lovin’ regulars won’t even bat an eye. After all, if loved ones can’t rough up each other in an Irish bar, then where can they?!
Finn MacCool’s: It’s in the Hospital District, so while you’re waiting for Cousin Tommy or Brother John to be stitched up, have a cold one or 12 in this finely appointed, sparkling clean, beautiful pub. There’s no telling exactly what gives an Irish pub its Irish feel. Is it the olde-tyme décor? The green beer? The drunks asleep on the floor? Who knows. But whatever it is, Finn McCool’s has it.
And lastly, we have Durty Murphys, Flynn’s Irish Pub, Paddy Reds Irish Pub, and Rick O’Sheas: A.) They all serve cold beer, B.) everybody – friends, acquaintances, enemies/relatives – likes cold beer, and C.) I know it’s corny as hell, but on St. Paddy’s Day, there’s no such thing as a stranger. See you wherever.
Contact Last Call at lastcall@fwweekly.com.
