par·si·mo·ni·ous: exhibiting or marked by parsimony ; especially : frugal to the point of stinginess.
And that’s the only word that comes to mind when chronicling the events of St. Patrick’s Day in Hoboken: Deep Recession Edition! Lines were shorter or non-existent at many places that once saw lines as recently as last year that resembled tryouts for American Idol. Most notably, the house party option in the evite box went up by a factor of 10. Simply put, no one wanted to spend money this year, and it was readily apparent at a relatively subdued first Saturday in March in Hoboken.
9:00 AM: Tradition says that I’m supposed to wake up and crack open a tall, cool Budweiser to go with my ham and cheese omelet, but tradition took the week off and forgot to replenish said King of Beers. A small glass of Forest Glen Cabernet makes breakfast interesting instead…
10:30 AM: Head to Edgewater (Edgewater?) to get a phone fixed that found the only puddle that existed within four city blocks upon falling out of my jacket. While waiting for what turned out to be a free upgrade, I venture over to Express to use a gift certificate my sister got me something like 17 years ago. The plan was to wear a green sweater, but I’ve already lost four pounds from sweating. The temperature on 1010 WINS says it is 54 degrees, but due to the conditioning brought about by 7-degree temps, it feels like Survivor: Hoboken St. Patrick’s Day, Tocantins.
If there’s something called wind chill, there should be an opposite real-feel matrix that shows how warm it feels when it’s in the single digits one week and 55 degrees higher in a matter of 72 hours. In today’s case, the real-feel opposite-of-wind-chill temperautre was 87 degrees on Saturday.
11:30 AM: After re-parking the car and somehow getting a cab without three hours of a busy signal, I walk by a girl at 8th and Jefferson who appears to already be overserved.
Girl talking to friend: Oh my God!
Friend: Whaaaat?
Girl: I just accidentally sent a text message saying I was already drunk to my boss!
Me: (checking watch): Hee-hee.
11:36 AM: Cab begins going up 1st Ave. Oddly, there’s no line at Northern Soul (the old Quiet Woman) whose name sounds more like an Anchorage Spa than a place to get hammered. Moving up the block, there’s a barely a line at O’Donoghues. It’s not until 1st and Bloomfield that Hoboken SPD looks like it did in the good ‘ol days (2008) with some fairly substantial lines. Now that’s more like it!
11:36:20 AM: Seeing people sober and standing still to get into one friggin’ bar makes me begin to think about a few things:
1) If you’re with 10 of your friends and are ready to drink, why wait to get into The Shannon when three bars within two blocks have no lines whatsoever? Isn’t a bar as good as the people you’re with? So why not go to OD’s, Wilton House, the Cage/Hennessey’s, the back of the CVS, wherever? Is the crowd or set-up at The Shannon that much better that you should wait as long as it takes to drive to Atlantic City to get in?
2) Our country is in a recession because the majority of our citizens aren’t very bright. Technology has made us more lazy, more spoiled, less resourceful. Maybe I’ve got a case of the Mondays while writing this, but I never understood the whole appeal of waiting on line for a bar on St. Patrick’s Day when every bar is good.
11:38 AM: Outdoor Port-a-Johns spotted at 1st and Clinton. You could offer me season tickets to the new Yankee stadium, and I still wouldn’t go in there the following day.
11:39 AM: The warm weather helps me come up with two hard incontrovertible facts:
Girls have opted for a look that conveys a certain, as Judge Smails put it when describing Lacy Underalls, “zest for living”. Short sleeves, tight jeans, as well as a healthy dose of beads that have made a very big comeback this year.
HSPD has now become Survivor: Hoboken St. Patty’s Day, Bourbon Street.
11:41 AM: One guy is sporting a Larry Bird jersey on a short line at the Dubliner. Well played, classic look. Surprised that’s the first time I’ve ever seen one at HSPD. In other news, not a Favre or Kellen Clemmens jersey is spotted within a 14-mile radius.
11:43 PM- Arrive at The Quays expecting a mass gathering (tickets were sold out over a week beforehand) and instead it looks like a Tuesday afternoon in April. No one except a fellow in a, well, kind of like the Michael Jackson comeback tour press conference, I don’t know how to describe it…Just take a look at the photo on the left.
11:45 AM- The place is half full and it was even easy to get a table. Bouncers: Friendly. Waitress: Competent and fast. Bartenders: Ditto. The Quays was indeed smart to sell tickets in advance. And unlike some other bars in town, they treated their customers like they actually wanted them to come back again.
1:00 PM- The Skels begin to play and the place is suddenly full (but not overcrowded). From there the day is typical, where minutes suddenly become hours, and the beer flows like wine.
5:00 PM- Wait? Wasn’t it 1 o’clock like five minutes ago? And where did this $300 bar tab come from?
6:00 PM- After getting a cab is as fruitless an exercise as getting Hoboken411 to print anything negative about their sugar momma Mayoral candidate, Beth Mason, I decide to walk in the oppressive heat.
Speaking of Perry Klaussen, we all know the guy has already been exposed as the biggest fraud to hit the tri-state area since A-Rod (without the looks, money, and talent). But once you thought his resume couldn’t become more tainted, our hero can now add the R-word to his list.
Check out this photo above, along with the pop-up caption.
Ha ha!
Get it?!
That’s a Hindu guy in Hoboken wearing green acting like he’s Irish!
And everybody knows that Irish people are the palest people on the planet!
LOL!
A black guy named O’Brien! And he’s in line at 8th Street Tavern!
LMAO!
Perry’s new name on realhoboken for the rest of his public existence?
Perry KKKlaussen.
Douschebag may make a substitute appearence as well.
6:30 PM- Back to business, upon stumbling by Cafe Michelina it appears they actually have a few tables available. Outstanding.
Best. Meal. Ever.
But that’s what seven hours of consumption of not-so-fine hops without food can do to one’s taste buds.
7:45 PM- I’m home. The phone is ringing but full-screening mode is in effect. My apartment is actually shaking from stomping and music but REM sleep is on the horizon. Clothes, shoes are on. It just doesn’t matter. Twelve hours of drinking used to be easy and breezy on Hoboken St. Patrick’s Day, but now age and a lack of reptitions has now turned me into a 7-hour kind-of-guy. I feel like Favre: I can still win you a few games, but don’t expect me to carry your team to the promised land (or in this case, midnight).
2:00 AM- Wake up for some much needed Poland Spring water and four advil. When it comes to avoiding hangovers, I’m anything but parsimonious.
10:00 AM- Head out for a much-needed breakfast at Malibu Diner. But upon exiting my apartment, a familiar scent from a long time ago enters my whiff zone. It’s a smell that reminds me of College Park. I hear Snow’s Informer in the far reaches of my head.
Yes, yes, that’s it! It’s the sights and smells of my old fratnerity house from every Sunday morning in our basement/dance floor. And the beer is the same exact cheap crap we had way back then (Keystone or Natural Light). Nostalgia rules.
Cans are everywhere as my feet stick to the floor of the elevator. The immediate outside of the building is Tobacco Road north with discared butts everywhere. It even reeks of stale beer outside on a windy day.
The weather is warm to a decide to hoof it. People with a glazed, Night of the Living Dead meets Michael Jackson’s Thriller look (that’s two Jacko references in one column, which hasn’t happened since 1988).
But there are an inrodinate amount of people still wearing green with beads. Clothes from the night before? Absolutely. The walk of fame was never more in full force.
8:45 AM, Monday: The Jersey Journal says Hoboken police reported more than 80 injuries in connection with the St. Patrick’s Day parade Saturday. It total, 376 summoneses are issued, including 220 for open alcohol containers (what assclown still does this after two years of warnings?). All told, add another $220,000 to the city coffers that are already overflowing with all that money from that tiny 47% tax hike. You stay classy, Hoboken.
The report also says that while open container violations were somehow higher than last year’s total (188), they were considerably lower than the 560 handed out in 2006.
When you add it all up, Hoboken has now collected nearly $1 million dollars for open container violations in the span of just three years.
And with public urination violations, we’ve now officially eclipsed the seven-digit mark. Woo-hoo!
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to start resting up for Survivor: St. Patrick’s Day, New York! eight days from now.