| rev:text
| - The IRA should firebomb this place. Claddagh has done more to disgrace the Irish than those Brits ever did. (Although, on second thought, it's probably less disgraceful than the work of Michael Flatley. So, nevermind...get that prancing idiot first. Let thy Legacy Villagers keep thy bogus pub!) Is this a chain? It feels awfully chain-like. Right down to the identical unfunny sloganed T-shirts worn by the entire staff...some tired old joke about alcoholism. (I don't care how funny a phrase might be...the very moment you print it on a T-shirt, it ceases to be funny.) Did I unwittingly walk into a chain? Damn it....I think I did. My first instinct was to bolt for the door, but I decided to suffer through a round of drinks and appetizers first. It's like TGI Fridays with an "Irish Theme". The food was pretty bad, and the music was worse (nothing says pub atmosphere like.....Madonna?) I was sitting there.....hoping desperately that some Arsenal football hooligans would show up and start headbutting people and spit blood and teeth everywhere, just to lend some element of authenticity to my experience....but alas, no such luck. Just perky servers with standard-issue smiles serving recently-unfrozen food to happy, mildly-intoxicated Americans. No hooligans detected. They have no idea how to pour beer here, either. My black & tan was an abomination. (How does one combine Guinness and Bass and produce something that tastes like Budweiser? There's some weird reverse-alchemy happening behind that bar. )
In fairness, I stopped in here because I had a vision and thirst for a rich, creamy ale in a gloomy pub on the Emerald Isle. What I got instead was a reminder of cheap, franchised America. Claddagh has the right "look" inside...all the right details are there in the decor...but the food, beer, and music made it impossible to project myself anywhere besides where I actually was: a mall parking lot, next to the Cheesecake Factory.
A PERSONAL NOTE: An old Irish-Am. girlfriend used to torment me with one of those Claddagh rings, with the two hands and the heart and whatever symbolic, sentimental garbage was associated with it. She'd talk about committment, and I'd stare off into space like some post-Hollywood Joaquin Phoenix, praying for deliverance from the whole uncomfortable topic. Are you trying to infuse our relationship with meaning and romance via some $9.99 piece of crap jewelry? Yeah. Nice try. Ask me about my new rap album.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)