Daily Briefs: May you be in heaven half an hour before, oh god, shoot me now

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Póg me hón: NPR’s shrill, reedy Thistle and Shamrock, which you may have mistaken at one time or another for a gigantic Irish mosquito buzzing around the inside of your car, or a lengthy and very Gaelic test of the Emergency Broadcast System, pretty much lives for the week of St. Patrick’s Day. At least, I imagine they do, since, to paraphrase David Cross, I would literally rather listen to the death rattle of my only child. SORRY, FIONA RICHIE! But it’s kind of the equivalent of a weekly show that plays nothing but Christmas music all year long. I can be mean about hateful Irish music because I’m Irish on my mom’s side.

St. Patrick’s Day, or the Feast of St. Patrick, is a traditional annual beer feast celebrating the life and bodily ascension of St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, who invented Riverdance, corned the beef, killed the snakes and sprinkled the frosted oat cereal with marshmallow surprises. Traditionally, we, I mean you, get drunk early in the morning and pass out by two o’clock in the afternoon. There’s a downtown parade! Seriously, I don’t get high on 4/20, open presents on Christmas, worship Satan on Halloween, propose marriage on Valentine’s day, indifferently sign a Hallmark card on Secretary’s Day, wear beads during Mardi Gras and I don’t fucking get drunk on St. Patrick’s Day, because I don’t want to look like you guys, you guys. No offense, but this is super-suave me:

and this is luck-o-the-Irish is you:

If it looks like I’m wearing a wig, it’s actually whatever is the super-manly equivalent of a wig. And if it looks like you’re wearing cargo shorts and no shirt and puking a case of Guinness Extra Cold on the sidewalk, I’m sorry to have to hold up a mirror to your traditionally trashy behavior. But seriously, you and me are pals, just like Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon, only alive, and if you can’t hear it from me, who can you hear it from?