Boring Bars

Why is it that American bars are so darn boring? I mean there is beer in them, that can be fun. but not really.

Case and point - do a search for "Irish Drinking Songs". You will get a billion hits. Same for "German Drinking Songs" or "French Drinking Songs" or "Spanish Drinking Songs" or "Belgian Drinking Songs", and so on. It seems that in the Old World, people go to pubs, get sloshed, and sometimes sing drinking songs.

But not in America. As far as I know, there are NO traditional American drinking songs. Well there are those patriotic songs that are really spoofs of English Anthems - like taking "God Save The Queen" and changing the words to "My Country Tis Of Thee". Bet you did not know that used to be an American drinking song! Same for that "Liberty Tree" song and so on. You know, save it from the sun boys, water down its roots with tea. And whatever else you do with the tall and strong oak tree.

But all these American drinking songs have been removed from bars. Probably for the better - they do kind of suck compared to the rich lexicon that is Irish Drinking Songs.

A friend of mine went to London. She was hanging out at a hotel bar and of course it closed. It seems in London their drinking laws are rooted in the stone age and everything closes early.

UNLESS you know where to go. And the locals all know where to go. So some people at the bar invited her to another pub they were some sort of members of. Anyway, one dude was Irish and the other Scottish. They took turns singing drinking songs, first the Irish version then the Scottish version. The words would change, the accent was different, but it seems that all the songs of both versions ended with "fuck the Queen".

It seems the Irish and Scottish do not like the Queen very much. Maybe it has something to do with the removal of the Stone Of Destiny from Edinburgh Castle and held hostage for hundreds of years, or the conquest of Catholic Ireland and the attempt to force The Church Of England on everyone. But what do I know.

Anyhow, that sounds like fun. Getting sloshed and singing crude songs that end in obscenities to the Queen (who I am sure is really a very nice old lady and it is unfair to blame her for what happened hundreds of years ago - plus she returned the rock in 1996 so there! Get over it already!).

Now there are some places in America that come close. In Miami there was this place called "Howl At The Moon". It was a piano bar. There were two pianos on a stage, and people would go there to get drunk and tip the piano players to play stuff - and everyone would drunkingly sing along. Badly. But it did not matter, nobody could hear your bad singing with all the noise in the place.

Howl At The Moon went out of business here. The regular crowd could not support it. And because Miami is NOT a real city all the tourists remained on South Beach and never came to the place. So it is history.

Disney World has a place called "Jellyrolls" that is just like Howl At The Moon. It is located on the Boardwalk area, by Epcot Center.

And some bars still have karaoke - but that is not the same. It can still be fun to go to karaoke night, but trust me here you HAVE TO be drinking. If you are not drinking, then karaoke night is just annoying.

So yea, I need to get my ass the hell out of this place and go some pub that is full of drunk people singing traditional drinking songs in a language I can understand.

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