Monthly Archives: April 2013

     Little Irish Shangrila: Right Above the Door

Irish Bars have these unique features that it is hard to miss if you are looking for one. I know there are some Irish Bars that would just announce its type before you even enter: “IRISH PUB,” it would read outside, on its illustrated and enhanced lintel. And others, that if you tried reading out loud would sound just like Sandarin—go on, try it sometimes. And as much as Manhattan prides upon its night life scene, I think Queens have—there is an “s” for God’s sake–one of the best Irish pubs in the world. No sir, I haven’t been to every single Irish Pubs in every corner of this world but I am sure it is true. And you know what’s truer than that? The Irish bar at Woodside is probably the best. Well, I am entitled to my biases. If you are not convinced, then listen to the highly credible accounts of the yelpers:

It is a cool place and we like to go there.

Be careful.

Careful?

A lot of Tibetans and sometimes, they get drunk and want to fight.

The place was very ethnically diverse, but true indeed, there were lots of Tibetans. Noticeably, one of the Tibetan women was not a woman.  The poor dude that danced with that particular person had not gotten the memo…he kept saying “that chick is tall…” as he ordered more drinks

It is so infamous that even Irish people in Ireland, yes Ireland, have misgivings about this place:

I have no doubt that Sean Og’s is horrifying on weekend nights unless you’re the kind of person who enjoys copulating with J1 Visa holders after hours of Smirnoff Ice fueled dancing.  This aspect of the bar is so infamous, that co-workers in my company’s Dublin office warned me of it.

I didn’t even know they served food, but the place was usually packed with drunks who were desperate and coming on to any woman they could get to make eye contact.

Or some surprises like this, who does she think she is? Jane Austen? Or a surrealist?

Sean Ogs seems amazing at first. Dancing on the weekends, cheap drinks, fun decor, stumbling distance from other bars. The longer you go here, though, the more you will realize that this is a date-raper’s paradise.

There’s always what I call a “creeper curtain” around the dance floor that you have to breech in order to get some space to dance.

Then there’s the weekend. Oh boy…it’s like a complete 180.

When it’s on douche mode it’s a bit weird but they actually have DJs and dancing on certain nights and a diverse crowd and good drinks.

This place is the real deal- I’m talking about the 3 B’s…Beers, Burgers and Babes. This part of Woodside is the Vegas of NYC

And some real critics:

Conclusion: I don’t care that you have very cute Halloween decorations and one of the only dance floors in Woodside Sean Og’s – you attract bad people, and there are better neighborhood bars that deserve my business.

If your a girl you might get a bit too much unnecessary attention from the weekend crowd since it’s really a sausage fest. But if you go with friends it can be very fun because of the vibe of the place. If your a guy don’t expect to pick up girls there, because you have about 5000 other guys to compete with.

By now I am sure this Irish bar is described by these key words: creeper, Tibetan, date-raper’s heaven, Tibetan, debauchery, and some more Tibetans. Yes, this place entertains a lot of Tibetans. During weekends, for those uninitiated, if you are not a Tibetan, then it would be safest if you just stuck to the bar stool and get the idea of hoping on to the dance floor out of your mind. You may or may not have it, but the dance floor is the yellow fever incarnate: a bunch of yellow people dancing feverishly.

You will see a lot of desperate middle-aged Tibetans, whom we call uncles and aunties. I actually have a friend whose stories of one-night-stands with aunties are inexhaustible. These uncles and aunties are the reasons that the elders of the household are advising their younger ones to avoid visiting such a place.

“Didn’t you know that aunties and uncles in that place have AIDS?”

“You going to Irish Bar, beware of uncles and aunties.”

“Are you a perve? Why else would you go to that place?”

“You can go New York, but don’t you dare so much as take a step into that God Forsaken Irish Bar.”

I am not sure if Irish bars have any reputation, if they did, I think among Tibetans, they have lost it all. It is just in the name; Irish Bars would have saved its face if whoever made Sean Og’s popular among Tibetans, actually addressed the bar as “Sean Og’s.” Now it is not just this particular bar that is shunned. I remember walking with my elder relatives and at the sound of the name Irish, they would grimace and bicker.

Cover Letter 3

Simile 

As empty as a graduate student’s bank account (how’s that for originality?)

As weak as a new born calf

Gathered together like Starlings

as rough as sandpaper

Trembling like a washer

praying like hoarding

bouncing like Mitt Romney’s policy?

smiling like squinting

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Metaphor

Heart of a mammoth

Mountains of crap

War is a mill

The Ocean is the bed

The moon is lamenting

The house is a lagoon

My love is a lock

Writing is the Universe

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Composition

I walk the vast stretch of the land: pavements as rough as sandpaper, air too thin to feel, and the scope far too blurry to bring into focus. Everything seems elusive; my breath blends with the silence of what surrounds me. Every new and different shape has to fight my pessimism to come into reality. Reality–huh! I whisper to myself, with every snaps of scarce optimism that glimpses by, “the moon is lamenting on the other side.” That moon is the shelter waiting to be felt is the only solace that my endless steps, exploring void horizons, couldn’t salvage. If you see me, don’t be fooled, I am onlysquinting like smiling; the arch of my brows have nothing in common to the line of my lips. If you hear me, don’t be startled, because that’s my passive pulse. The heart of the mammoth has still the magnanimity, but between stillness and eternity, it is bound to halt.

20 Acts in 60 Minutes

My favorites were:

1) Act 3: It’s Commerce that Brings Us Together

2) Act 13: More Lies

3) Act 19: Hard Life at the Top.

“Well, we lost it. So you can quit advertising it.” This concluding remark in Act 3 is funny and honest at the same time. That’s probably why I chose the rest of the acts in my list– a strange blend of innocence and humor, juxtaposing each other and giving these stories more dimensions and thus making them satisfactory. In this particular act, we get a glimpse of an American life which is hard to come by for those who live in the city and treat technology as their second nature. There is humor in their list of objects they are trying to sell and the unapologetic tone with which they announce them.

“Ohh, it’s mine; I keep change in that.” Act 13 is probably the funniest out of the bunch. Even though the college kids in this act are lying, there is this innocence about them that they are even embarrassed to admit to eating half a grapefruit and a can of black beans that they decided to erase any evidence of them ever existing by packing the other half of the grapefruit and the empty can in their bag. And the event that unfolds thereafter is just one of the few moments in life where life seems to be imitating a movie.

Whereas the very last act, although sans any laughter and guffaws, screams humor in the form of sobriety. You can’t help but laugh at the young cadet’s gaffes on their very first day at West Point. One is not sure whether to pay heed to the morbid histories, that the narrator relays, of the young cadets or the comedic scene of the scene at hand. “Is your last name Doe?”

When you listen to TAL, most of the time you like a story without knowing exactly why. I think the same is here as I try to choose the ones that I like. But I usually tend to like stories which are told live, rather than the ones which sound more like a monologue. Usually, I don’t look for particular themes or genre when I listen to TAL, but I do prefer to listen to stories that are personal, and tend to avoid those which sound like a reportage. However, the stories that I have listed above have this feel of remoteness– something that you yearn for when you live in a city.