BSC 2019 Top 20 Countdown - #17 Dying The River Green On St. Patrick's Day
A Note From Carl - This is the 4th entry in the Barstool Chicago Top 20 Moments of 2019 blog series. The list is coming from our perspective as 4 dudes who got the job of a lifetime exactly one year ago.
We covered this list in person at the December 20th live show. We're following it up on our podcasts to close out the year under following schedule:
#10-6: Red Line Radio 12/30
#5-1: Dog Walk 12/30
I'll be covering them on the blog one-by-one. I have no rhyme or reason to length or content other than I just want to give each one of these moments their own blog. And on a personal level, I want to hit 2020 in full stride and nothing says momentum like firing off 20 straight blogs to end the year:
#18 Keeping The Watch Party At Declan's Alive
#17 - St. Patrick's Day Got Rowdy
From Chief on March 20th, 2019:
Saint Patrick’s Day is always one of my favorite holidays of the year and 2019 might have been my favorite Saint Patrick’s Day of them all. The Stoolies and Miller Lite teamed up to make it a great day. Started on the River getting sprayed with the green river dye, continued with stoolies showing up to parties and HAMMERING our inbox with great videos. I am not a big fight video guy and we didn’t really get any of those, but I am now a HUGE tree climbing/falling guy. Can’t get enough of those. That needs to be the new Chicago tradition. All you gotta do is look up in the trees, who else seen the leprachaun say YEAAAH
I don't think there's ever been that much falling from trees in Chicago history and I'm including all the Lollapaloozas that have come before 2019. Pound for pound just a historic day for tree-based concussion and related skull injuries across the greater Chicago metropolitan area.
But leaky brains aren't the only reason St. Patrick's Day checks in at #17 on our top 20 countdown for 2019. They play a huge part but there's way more.
For starters, St. Patricks is such a big party in Chicago because we spend all of January and February counting down to it. The first Saturday everyone goes out day drinking across the city and getting weird. It's the sign that winter is over even though winter usually doesn't start til mid February now. In it's simplest form it's one of the best days of the year.
Now mix that in with river-level access to the plumbers' union that starts the party:
And you have yourself a perfect recipe to start a day long party with your boys which is exactly how the day went down. From the actual river we ended up at Mad River (or whatever it's called now) in Lincoln Park for part 1 of a college-style shit show. Then down Sheffield through the heart of LP to another bar. Then another bar. Then another. On it went for 12+ hours, a sea of stoolies flooding bar entrances and overwhelming door guys left and right. It was a sight to behold and something we'll be much better prepared for this year. Honestly we might just rent out a VFW hall for the day and fill some coolers because if there's one thing that's true, it's all about location on St. Patrick's in Chicago.
Another reason this checks in at #17 for us as a group - it was the first time in 2019 we actively tried to throw some kind of party together. Chief was blacked out by 1. WSD was trying to get Rick Hahn to come out. (He was in Arizona.) I think I had 93 shots of rumplemintz and Eddie basically challenged a bar owner to rough n rowdy but not really. Looking back it's remarkable just how lazily we put that day together and it still turned out a success.
Why?
Assholes falling from trees. You gotta admit that stuff is funny.
Up Next #16: March Madness In Wrigley With One Of Those Giant Checks From Happy Gilmore