St. Patrick's Day.

The Patron Saint of Drunks and Romantics.

Hey everybody. It just now occurred to me that this is St. Paddy’s Day. In another life I’d have been resting up for the the rigors of public drunken-ness.

But now? In the last good stretch of my road? Well, I’ve already done my dumbbell workout, and I’m stealing myself for the 4 mile walk that I aim to accomplish before the neighborhood settles into it’s predicted 95° swelter.

To be followed by a list of chores, and a 25 mile drive in my Honda Element to deliver 50 chairs and 4 stage-riser boxes to the spacious backyard where we’ll be gathering our musical tribe Saturday.

There is a romanticism attached - at least in the Irish psyche - to alcohol. That blurry place where one is relieved of the burden of self for a time. Where he can allow his weakness to show. Where his sentimental heart blooms like the blood vessels in his cheeks. And where he might hug and or slug a friend who’s just as drunk, and who will be just as fully forgiven.

I’m linking my song ‘St. Patrick’s Day’ for your seasonal pleasures. It’s a worthy song. Celebratory, mostly. One that I actually did write on a rainy March 17, in the isolation of my first ‘Hobo Dojo’ in a repurposed horse corral in Thousand Oaks known as Thelma’s.

When I say rainy, I mean absolutely deluged.

I’d been there over a year at that time, but didn’t know many people closer than an hour’s drive away. And I had enough sobriety to know that I’d make it through our national day of booze. So I did what any man as full of unfocused longing would do. I went out driving. Passing by every bar that called my name.

I came home - soaked to the skin and filled to the brim with inner conflict. And I wrote this song. In one sitting. Pretty much before my hair was dry. Give it a listen.

As I described it in the thumbnail … An Ode To Joyous Fatalism.

I played it at a song-pull a while back, and a friend said ‘I don’t get it’. He did not comprehend how a person might be just as happy when he’s not. I didn’t even try to explain. It was one of those IYKYK moments. (if you don’t know, you don’t know)

My friend is not the sort to go digging within, when the demons are calling. Not the sort to welcome dissatisfaction the way I do - as a sort of hunger-pang of the soul. When I’m in a dark place, I take despair as a call to action. And I have constructed my life - through many years of painful trial and error - in such a way that the ‘action’ I’m referring to means this: SERVICE.

Yep. This is the other side of the Irish soul. The Emerald Isle has produced as many priests as it has wistful drunken poets. It may be that I have a little of both in me. Maybe.

What I do know is that when the alcohol has stopped working, you can get almost the same release from ‘self’ by contributing whatever you can, to whatever village it is that put up with you before the bottle gave up its last drop of inspiration.

That’s what it means. That I only really show up for others when doing so is the surest way to turn off my self-obsession, self-pity, and self-loathing. And knowing that will work, makes me happy when I’m not. If we assume a 30,000-foot view of unhappiness. If we assume a willingness to self-reflect.

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I hope you listened. And If you’re in SoCal, within an easy drive of Lake Balboa (the rural-ish portion of Van Nuys just west of the 405), I hope you’ll consider filling one of those chairs that I’ve hauled across town.

By then, I’ll have cooked a cauldron-full of my signature chili, and added that to the culinary contributions of Alexia, and others on our team. By then Greg and I will have practiced well and set up the sound-system. By then the lovely Karen Turner will have arrived with her own fine songs, and batch of chili. By then, our dear friend Paula Fong will have journeyed all the way from the South Bay to grace us with her expert harmonies.

By then we’ll all be ready for you. And confident that our motto will again prove accurate.

”Come Hungry … Leave Happy” (no inner turmoil needed)

Here’s the flyer. Here’s the email to RSVP and get directions.
alexia@alexiasalvatierra.com

Happy St. Pat’s.
-Dave