Monday, March 17, 2008

I hope that you’re not St. Patrick’s Day partied out yet, because we have the big broadcast Monday morning at Riva on Navy Pier from 5:30 to 10:00 am . If I were still drinking, I would have been hitting it hard since Thursday night, so I understand that you might be partied out. If you’re not in the mood to drink, we will have a free Irish breakfast for you provided by the fine folks at Riva. If you still feel like knocking back a few, then Budweiser will provide you with all of the green beer that you can safely handle. I’ve been to Ireland and breakfast is the way to go over there. You can’t really screw up oatmeal. The food in Ireland the rest of the day gets kind of weird.

Phil Stefani has arranged for you to park at Navy Pier for $5.00, so you can’t beat that, and you should be able to park right near the restaurant. I’m not sure if they have valet parking that early, but odds are that they probably will. I’m sure Brendan will park your car for a few bucks too. He’s very enterprising in that respect. Catching the sunrise on Navy Pier seems like a great way to get the real St. Patrick’s Day started, and also a great way to kick off the week. It won’t be a problem seeing it either, as Riva has an excellent view of both Lake Michigan and the Chicago skyline. I had my Bar Mitzvah at Riva so it holds special memories for me as well.

I watched the Chicago St. Patrick’s Day parade on TV this year. Channel 7 had the HD coverage, so I chose that over Channel 9. I was a little disappointed that Janet Davies wasn’t tapped to do the coverage (insert your own tapping Janet Davies joke here), but seeing Joel Daly look like he had an air hose stuck up his ass was worth the price of admission. Of course it was free, so that’s a meaningless statement. The parade didn’t look like it was much fun as it used to be. It wasn’t because it was cold either. The parade just hasn’t been the same since they moved it away from downtown to Grant Park. You have to have several bars on the parade route to have a successful St. Patrick’s Day parade.