Someone contacted the
office a few months ago to tell us that Carroll’s, an Irish bar and restaurant
on East Main Street across from East High, has the only jukebox in town stocked
with Shane MacGowan CDs.
           This
sounded like a dubious claim, but one worth looking into.
           Had MacGowan, a notorious sot, not
only been barred from drinking establishments all over the globe, but behaved
so badly that the digital reproduction of his unintelligible voice, truly a
confusion of ones and zeros, was banned in some bars, as well? (If so, it would
set precedence in the practice of bar law — a punishment more severe than
that meted out in Rosie’s v. That
Jerk-off, in which the owner of a bar in Portland, Maine, gave an offender
a triple life sentence: “You can’t drink here; if you have kids, they can’t
drink here; and their kids are barred, too!”)
           If I was finally going to try to
look into this, I figured I’d start with Carroll’s, naturally, just to make
sure it had the goods. (Plus, it’s almost St. Patrick’s Day, and tradition
dictates that the media cover Irish things. Every other day of the year, we
just drink in these places.)
           Sure
enough, Carroll’s has MacGowan in spades. There’s plenty of Pogues, too (the
Irish pub band with punk inclinations and far too many strong libations that
made MacGowan an ale-house name).
           Having verified this, and having
procured the obligatory Guinness, I stood at a loss in the little pub,
listening to MacGowan blather out a tune from the jukebox that had been silent
while I’d waited for the stout to slowly settle. No one there needed to hear
music, necessarily — they had the melody of one another’s lilting voices to
savor. (Kidding, I only heard one brogue that night.)
           Every
seat at the bar was occupied, all dozen or so of ’em. There was a dining area
the same tiny size as the drinking area, with a dartboard. A few families were
eating over there. (The dartboard wouldn’t be used for a couple hours.)
Cardboard shamrocks spun from the ceiling, green garland hung from the walls.
           The
ladies at the bar were, well, ladies. A small group of regulars played a
good-natured game of “poker” using the serial numbers on dollar bills to bid
hands of some sort, but the rules of this strange Irish game were beyond my
ken.    Soon enough, a seat opened up.
And before I’d finished a second stout, I was feeling quite at home. Carroll’s
is a friendly place, and the fish fry was excellent.
           So, should you go to Carroll’s on
St. Pat’s Day?
           Before you go, consider this:
Carroll’s is small. Actually, it’s just the right size for the neighborhood
crowd that hangs there the other 364 1/4 days of the year. But on St. Patrick’s
Day, it must be like a boat fleeing the potato famine — minus most of the
Irish people. Granted, they’ll be serving corned beef suppers, but you can
always get the sandwich on some uncrowded night.
           And for another thing, St. Patrick’s
Day is “amateur night” on the weekday drinking circuit. College students who
actually study and other homebodies feel the rare effect of a worknight drunk
and get giddy, disoriented in the sanctioned irresponsibility of it all, and
lose responsibility for the contents of their stomachs. Call it St. Patrick’s
Purgation, if you will.
           If I were you, I’d steer clear ’til
Tuesday. Cheers.
This article appears in Mar 12-18, 2003.
