Project America
Posted by Ruth on July 18th, 2010
One of my first jobs out of high school was bartending at an Irish pub. And not a “Father PJ O’Reilly’s Irish-themed pub” Irish pub, either: the customers were Irish, the beer was Irish, the other staff members were Irish, the whiskey was Irish, the food was Irish, the decor was Irish, the football on the TV was Irish (well, Gaelic, but there’s a certain flow I’m going for here), and the music was Irish (except for Friday night, which was mainstream rock played by an Irish cover band). The security guards were Lebanese, but that’s a whole different story. They hired me out of sheer desperation during the low tourist season, and gave me the most menial tasks and absolute minimum amount of shifts until they could think of an excuse to fire me.
God I hated that place. The punters all worked together in these Irish construction companies, then came in every single afternoon to drink Guinness, Magners and Kilkenny (and cocksucking cowboys when they got drunk enough), eat Tayto chips, and whinge about how “shite” it all was — “The Guinness in this country is shite” “The potatoes in this country are shite” — until “last drinks” was called, and then one would climb up on a table and sing a 12-verse ballad about villages burning down and famines and other cheery historical Irish tales until the Lebs got fed up and booted them into a cab. Then they’d come back the next day to do it all over again. The staff members were even worse. Most of them lived upstairs, and if they weren’t working in the Irish pub with other Irish people, they were drinking there. Occasionally they’d go to drink at other Irish pubs, but they’d always be back before close to talk about how “shite” it was.
I’m all for multiculturalism, but “jaysus fookin’ chroist”, if you’re going to fly (or sail — I swear, some of the punters were that old) halfway around the world, at least try to enjoy and experience some of the local culture. Then whinge about how “shite” it is.
And Aussies are often no better. I know plenty who have lived in the UK for years without stepping foot outside of a Walkabout pub, and don’t even start me on Khao San Road.
There are no Aussie pubs around here (though there is an Australian themed restaurant chain, serving up authentic bush tucker like “Alice Springs Chicken Quesadilla” and “Kookaburra Wings”). But there’s a grocery store nearby that stocks Tim Tams and Vegemite, Australian pies, pasties and sausage rolls across the river, a deli near my building that sells Bundaberg ginger beer, a Scottish food cart near my office that sells fish and chips, a bakery up the hill that makes ANZAC “cookies”, usually at least one Australian band or musician playing in town each week, and a local AFL team. And for some bizarre reason, Wholefoods sells giant cans of Fosters.
photo by Thomas Hawk
But I don’t want to be one of those expats. I’m in freaking America, damnit! I want to go to the baseball games and rodeos and eat Twinkies and chilli cheese fries and buy a shot-gun and listen to bluegrass and re-enact the civil war and split infinitives.
Anyway, this is my extremely long-winded way of introducing a new regular feature I’m calling “Project America”, wherein I road-test quintessentially American things. All in the name of cross-cultural harmony and eating a bunch of disgusting deep-fried foods (just wait until I get to roadtest “becoming an obesity statistic”).
Then I’ll tell you how shite it all is.
