Words That Changed the World: "The Drunkards' Chorus"

Lyrics, such as they are, and melody by Mickey MacConnell.

Drunk History

Bowling in the Dark does not condone public drunkenness, unless it’s educational. Or funny. Today we learn a lot about cell phones and tennis shoes, both of which existed, believe it or not, in 1804.

Drunk History Vol. 1 - Featuring Michael Cera from Drunk History     

Popular Misconceptions about St. Patrick’s Day

 

  

MYTH: Somebody else out there has a shirt that reads “Kiss me, I’m Irish,” so you probably shouldn’t wear yours.

FACT: We’ve never heard this joke before. Come here and give us a kiss.

MYTH: Actual Irish—that is, people found in Ireland and were born there—don’t habitually wear shirts that read “Kiss me, I’m Irish.”

FACT: Believe it or not, they wear them all the time. Of course, being in Ireland, they already know they’re Irish, so they don’t bother with that part of the phrasing. Also, because certain regions of the world express certain sentiments in slightly different ways, their shirts read simply “Fuck you.”

MYTH: Wearing lots of green will make you seem more authentically Irish.

FACT: Wearing lots of green actually makes you authentically Irish. In fact, any sort of association with green qualifies you for citizenship.

The most famous Irishmen of the twentieth century.

 

MYTH: If you don’t wear green on St. Patrick’s Day, you will get pinched.

FACT: We refused to wear green on St. Patrick’s Day throughout our high school career, and claimed that the reason for our stance was that we had actual Irish heritage and didn’t need to bother.¹ In truth, this was secretly an ingenious ploy to get pinched by the girl we liked at the time.² It didn’t work. Never—not once—did we get pinched. It’s okay, though, because she’s dead now.³

MYTH: The Irish are a belligerent, violent people.

FACT: Why don’t you say that to my face, you rotten son of a bitch.

Fortunately, stereotypes of violent Irish are
nowhere to be found in today’s sensitive culture. 

 

MYTH: Didn’t you just love Braveheart?

FACT: Most of the characters in Braveheart were Scots, who come from Scotland—which is a totally different country than Ireland. Really! they have a flag and everything. In fact, the only Irish people you’ll find in the film are one unkempt eccentric and several thousand humorous, belligerent, and easily dispatched extras. The bad guys were English, as all true bad guys are, and of course the hero, William Gibson Wallace, is equal parts American, Australian, and crazy.

It could be worse. I’m only playing a crazy person.

MYTH: Some Irish, and even some Americans of Irish descent, might find it a bit disappointing or even insulting that Americans “honor” the Irish culture by getting blind shitfaced and vomiting on things they’re too drunk to identify.

FACT: The Irish are so constantly, uniformly paralytic drunk that they don’t realize they’re being stereotyped.

MYTH: Drinking green beer will make you more Irish.

FACT: Drinking green beer will make you a fucking idiot.

NOTES

1. We are absolutely 100% half-Irish, if you don’t count the technicality of having been born in the United States of America, just like both our parents, all of our grandparents, and most of our great-grandparents.

2. This is true.

3. Technically she’s not dead; a shocking time-travel accident caused her to kill her own grandfather, so it’s more accurate to say that she simply never existed.

Drunk History: Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison

“More Drunk History!” you said, a little too loudly and with an awful lot of slurring.

“You’ve got it,” we replied, albeit a bit reluctantly. We wish to make it clear that we do not in any way condone drinking, onscreen vomiting, or learning. But hey, what the hell, here you go anyway:

Drunk History vol. 6 w/ John C. Reilly & Crispin Glover from Drunk History

Warp Time from the Comfort of Your Own Home!

     
Thanks to the relentless onward march of modern technology, you too can toy with time and the theory of relativity without the inconvenience and expense of having to approach the speed of light. Just sit down, relax, and follow these four easy steps:

1. Put the Allman Brothers’ Band’s instrumental “Jessica” on your iPod or CD player. 

2. Push “play.” 

3. Fourteen to sixteen months later, as the song comes to an end, push “stop.” 

4. Check your watch. Amazingly, only about seven and a half minutes will have passed! 

Preliminary research has suggested that similar effects are produced by combining The Doors’s “The End” with the  consumption of near-poisonous quantities of Everclear. Sadly, in recent years these studies have stalled due to the difficulty of finding volunteers healthy enough to subject themselves to repeated exposure to The Doors.

Fun Facts about Sangria

Sangria: Amazing.

After having returned safely from a housewarming party, warmed by conversation with good friends, plenty of food and drink, and loads of general pre-holiday cheer, I am happy to report that I have learned the following things:

1. Triple sec has alcohol in it. This probably isn’t news to most people, but as a mostly-beer-drinker, I didn’t know. I had always assumed, despite somehow ending up with a couple of bottles of triple sec in my liquor cabinet for several years, that it was just an alcohol-free mixer, like 7-Up, tonic, or Miller Lite. However, Mrs. Some Guy was pretty sure that triple sec—an important ingredient in sangria, which was served at the housewarming party—was indeed alcohol, so I looked it up when we got home, and she was right.
2. Sangria is amazing. I learned this particular lesson forty-six times as I drove home. Sangria, as it turns out, has several kinds of alcohol in it.
3. Amazing, believe it or not, can be pronounced as a seven- or eight-syllable word.