Sign Language St. Pattie's with a Side of Beef

There are certain things that you think are completely normal while growing up, until you try to explain it to a friend from another country. St. Patrick's Day is one of those things.

When you're a kid you wear some green clothing and maybe eat a green-frosted cupcake. The holiday only takes on a bit more significance once you hit that tender age of 21 (or maybe 18, or maybe 15 depending on your hard coreness) and realize, "Wow, there's an entire holiday surrounding drinking". Suddenly, you might still wear a green sweater, but the focus becomes taking down Irish Car Bombs, pints of Guinness, and graduating from cupcakes to corned beef and cabbage.

It's 2011, I'm back in the US, and back in NYC, a land where St. Pattie's Day is serious business. Often called "amateur hour" by self-proclaimed serious drinkers due to the hordes of ill-trained drunks roaming the streets, from as early as 10am in Midtown you can see people stumbling around.

Wandering through the mess and looking for a place to eat with a friend, I remembered a new concept that can only exist in my fair city: the nearby Bowery Poetry Club recently began serving much buzzed about Roast Beef sandwiches....and trust me, they are just plain amazing.

There are two things I have to bring up about this. First, why? How? What the fuck? How does a place where I'd previously seen the most intense spoken word...where the hip and intellectual emoted on rape and racism...how does a poetry club decide it would get in the beef business?

Secondly, and I guess less of a wtf moment, when did "Boston style roast beef" become a concept? I do remember Kelly's Roast Beef in Boston, and thought they did make a great sandwich, but was this enough to coin an entire genre of food? I'm proud of my hometown for many things, but is this for real or is this some cynical marketing ploy (yes, the MBA in me has become somewhat suspect of all things business)?

We sat down and ordered. As we waited for the piles of thinly sliced beef, melted che

ese, horseradish, mustard, bbq sauce, and an awesomely branded bun, we decided to check out what was going on in the stage area of the venue. I walked up to a curtained area, where a man who probably says he is not a hipster, thus cementing his credentials as a hipster, told me "Sign language poetry slam, $4 cover".

He said this without a hint of irony or absurdity. Yes, there was a sign language poetry slam. I peeked in and was just too overwhelmed by the combination of things going on at this given moment and didn't have the wherewithal to take any footage for you so all I can give you is a generic Youtube clip.

I acknowledge this story is a bit rambling. It's a bit, to use my favorite word in the English, random. However, coming across a sign language poetry slam + while seeking out a Boston style roast beef sandwich + on St. Patrick's day = my kind of bliss.